Hermione Granger and The Unseen Element
by StormtrooperVF101
Summary: Follow Hermione through her fifth year as she continues to be the best she can. Unbeknownst to Hermione that through all this an ancient prophecy is being fulfilled and an Unseen Element will be revealed, an element that spells doom for anyone who stands
1. Hotel Golf

Chapter One

Platform nine and three quarters was bustling with activity as students either returning, or going for their first time, to Hogwarts. Sitting in the middle of the platform was the brilliant red Hogwarts Express Steam Engine. Amidst the students and parents were the train conductors, who had their hands full checking tickets, assisting students stow their trunks in the cargo car. Unnoticed in the excitement was the addition of two conductors who would sweep the entire platform with their eyes every few minutes, in search of someone. Reaching up as though to scratch an itch behind his ear one of the conductors tapped a spot behind his ear twice before lowering his arm and continuing to sweep his eyes around the platform every few minutes. He was near the middle of the train when a large group of Hogwarts Students emerged on to the platform, among the group were Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, the remaining Weasleys, a large black dog, and a few others. Upon seeing the group the conductor tapped the spot behind his ear four times. 

A few minutes later the train was slowly pulling out of the station on its annual trip to Hogwarts. The platform was mostly cleared except for a few remaining parents, the large black dog, and the two conductors. The two conductors approached Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. 

"Hello Arthur, Molly, have some trouble getting here?"

Somewhere two miles South of King's Cross two U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopters sat idly on makeshift helipads, which were currently serving as temporary staging areas for the operation. Each Blackhawk carried a twelve-man infantry squad, also known as a "Chalk". The air was still, except for a slight breeze that was practically non-existent. One of the pilots in the cockpit checked his watch, then began flipping switches and pressing buttons. Slowly the rotor blades on the top of the helicopter and the tail rotor began to rotate. After a few seconds the rotors were kicking up a cloud of dust, grass and dirt. Soon the signal that the train was on the move and that all objectives were aboard came through to the pilots' helmet and the two Blackhawks lifted off the ground and into the air, in pursuit of their target.

Aboard the Hogwarts Express Harry, Ginny, and Neville were lounging idly in their seats. Luna Lovegood had retreated from view behind an upside down copy of _The Quibbler_. Unnoticed by the four of them was the solitary Blackhawk that was travelling parallel to the train. Inside the helicopter the soldiers took turns watching for any signs of trouble, except for one soldier who sat in-between the cargo bay, and cockpit. The soldier who sat in the chair was radioing in to the other Blackhawk that was travelling further up along the train. 

'Kilo Lima Sierra, this is Delta Kilo over.'

'Go ahead Delta.'

'Hotel Papa, November Lima, and Golf Whiskey have been located, and everything's cool, over.'

'Delta, Primary objective Hotel Golf located, Romeo Whiskey also located. Wait one.' The soldier who's turn it was to be on watch lifted the binoculars up just in time to watch Harry get a face full of Stinksap. Mere seconds after Harry was hit; a girl emerged into the compartment, whose face immediately went red, and after a few short words turned and left, still red in the face.

'Hey Sarge!' Called the soldier who had the binoculars, 'Hotel Papa just had a visitor. From what I can tell looked like Ravenclaw, I think she plays on their Quidditch team.'

'Kilo Lima, Hotel Papa just had a visitor, Ravenclaw Quidditch player. Advise designate as "Charlie".'

'Delta, designation "Charlie" confirmed. Okay, Hotel Golf and Romeo Whiskey are headin' back towards y'all.'

'Roger that Kilo. So far no visit from Delta Mike and his group.'

'Roger that Delta will keep that in mind. Delta, go on ahead and prepare for tonight and we'll meet up with you there.'

'Roger that Kilo, Delta out.'

The helicopter that had been flying parallel to the to the car that Harry was reclining in titled forward and sped off in the direction of Hogwarts. Taking up its position was a virtually identical Blackhawk that remained there until the end of the journey where it peeled off just before reaching the train station.

As the train came to a stop the passengers began to make their way out of the passenger cars and onto the station. Unnoticed by all the students was the helicopter hovering above the station, masked by the night. All of the cars were pouring students out, except for one. A student who was standing halfway through the doorway blocked one car, from what the soldiers in the Blackhawk could tell it looked as though Harry had noticed that instead of Hagrid it was Professor Grubby-Plank who was assembling the first years. After a few seconds Harry had realized that he was blocking the doorway so he stepped out onto the platform. 

Harry and Ginny began weaving their way through the crowd to the carriages. Meanwhile Hermione and Ron were off performing their duties as Hogwart Prefects. After ruining Malfoy's attempt at bullying a group of first years Hermione and Ron set off in search of Harry and Ginny. Before they had found Harry, Hermione grabbed Ron's arm and pulled him over to the side and asked, "Ron, do you get the feeling that we're being… well being watched?"

Ron looked at Hermione as though she were crazy. "Being watched? Of course we're being watched, we're school prefects."

Hermione rolled her eyes at this. "I _know_ that Ron, but I don't mean being watched like that. It's like we're being watched by…" she paused as she tried to think of the right words, "It's like someone's watching us, someone or something that is unseen, something hidden," by this point Hermione was speaking so quietly she mind as well have been talking to herself. Meanwhile Ron looked as befuddled as before.

"Hermione are you feeling all right?"

'Yes Ron, I'm perfectly fine. It's just—oh, never mind. Let's go find Harry."

Ron eyed Hermione nervously as they continued towards the line of horse-less carriages. When Hermione and Ron found Harry Hermione quickly stepped into the carriage meanwhile Harry was pointing something out to Ron but appeared to be having no effect on Ron except to increase the look of befuddlement. Finally Harry gave up and the two boarded the carriage. Inside the carriage Hermione sat staring out of the window into the night sky searching for the source, or at least some clue as to this unease. 

'Delta, status on First Years?'

'Kilo, first years are moments from reaching the boats.'

'Roger that, Delta, convoy's moving. Signal back when the first years are across then we'll move into position for the final part.'

'Affirmative Kilo, Delta out.'


	2. Another Year Begins At Hogwarts

Chapter Two

'Kilo, Delta. First years are moving into the castle. Repeat. First years are moving into the castle.'

'Roger that Delta. Move into position and we'll join you soon enough.'

'Copy that, Delta out.'

Inside the Great Hall students and teachers were sitting at their respective tables while awaiting the arrival of the first years. Sitting in a group at the Gryffindor table Harry, Ron and Hermione were all chatting idly about something or another occasionally chatting with their other friends who they hadn't seen since the end of their last year. During one of the pauses in conversation Hermione noticed that she no longer felt as though she were being watched. Probably just nerves thought Hermione, that's all. Looking upwards to the staff table where all the teachers sat Hermione wondered where Hagrid was. But before she could think too much on it she detected movement out of the corner of her eye. Looking up towards the bewitched ceiling Hermione watched as a group of stars disappeared and then reappeared a second later, as though something had moved in front of them. Hermione was thinking on this when the doors of the Great Hall were opened and a line of frightened looking students were lead into the Great Hall by Professor McGonagall, who was carrying a stool and the sorting hat. Hermione tossed the subject of the stars to the back of her mind and focused on the sorting ceremony that was about to begin.

Hovering stealthily above the Gryffindor tower two Blackhawks were dropping soldiers off onto the roof of the tower. Once on the roof the soldiers would quietly set up rappelling devices that would allow them to move behind the windows without risking the fall, and it also allowed them to attach small quantities of explosives onto the windows for the coming operation. Once the explosives were on the windows the soldiers attached to the rappelling gear would be pulled back up to just above the window frame and wait there until the signal to enter was given. 

'Kilo, troops are on the deck moving into holding pattern.'

'Roger that Delta. From what I'm told they should be on their way up to us in a few minutes.'

'Roger that Kilo. We'll provide cover for the extract.'

'Copy that Delta, Kilo out.'

The soldiers waited on the roof or just over the edge of the roof dangling on ropes. There was no sound except the occasional cough, rustling of cloth, or the rushing of the blowing wind. Minutes passed agonizingly slow before the first sounds of people moving began to creep their way through the stone walls and glass windows. Gangly shadows pressed themselves up against the windows, and the noise grew steadily louder. A dull thump signaled that the portrait hole to the common room had just been closed. A few seconds later a flare shot out of the Dark Forest, followed by two more. 'Go, go, go!'

Plopping down on her bed in the girls dormitory and just lay there. Sitting back up Hermione grabbed a book that was lying closest to her. On a closer inspection Hermione had grabbed _"The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5"_ opening up to the page where she had been reading last (somewhere near the back of the book) and continued.

Inside the common room people were warming their hands by the fire, Fred and George were pinning something up on one of the notice boards. A few people were making idle chat, when suddenly a red and gold haze shone through the windows and everything got very still and quiet.

Hermione suddenly became uneasy, she marked the spot where she had last read and closed the book. Placing the book down on the bed she looked up to see two red, and one gold star fall past the window. The noise from the common room suddenly died down, and the air became still. The only sounds that could be heard was the crackling of the fire, and a high-pitched zipping sound.

'Go, go, go!'

Three beeps resounded in response as the explosive charges placed on the window were activated. The common room suddenly became a battlefield. Glass and bits of stone rained throughout the room. The boy's dormitory windows exploded also, anyone who had been asleep was now awake and screaming at the top of their lungs. Soldiers flew out of what used to be windows yelling orders to the students at the top of their lungs.

'-Get down!'

'-Everybody down-'

'-On the floor!'

'—Get the feth down!'

In the boy's dormitory those who sought refuge in their beds were being forcefully removed from them. With all the boys extracted from their beds they were marched out of their dormitory and into the common room.

Inside the girl's dormitory Hermione heard, and felt the explosions. Rising quickly from the bed Hermione was half way to the door when Dobby appeared in front of the doorway.

"Dobby!" Hermione exclaimed, "How long have you been in here, and what are you wearing?"

"Dobby has been ordered to tell miss, not to fight back and go with them. No harm will come. Now Dobby must go."

"No! Dobby wait! Fight who?"

"Dobby can not say," with that Dobby disappeared, leaving Hermione bewildered. Before Hermione could begin to move the windows were kicked inward and three soldiers came through the window into the dormitory.

'Miss Granger?' One of the soldiers asked.

"Yes? Who are you, what are you doing here?"

'Miss Granger please come with us.'

"Why? What's going on?"

'It's not safe to discuss it here, everything will be explained if you come with us.'

Hermione was tempted to scream for help, but the words that Dobby had said still rang in her mind. 

'Don't worry we'll get you back in time for your classes, and incase we don't special arrangements have already been made.'

Feeling as though there really was no choice Hermione muttered the words, "Okay."

'Kilo this is Foxtrot.'

'Foxtrot this is Kilo go ahead.'

'Kilo, Hotel Golf is secure and ready for extract.'

'Roger that Foxtrot, well done.'

Turning to face the open windows one of the soldiers withdrew an overly large barreled pistol, loaded it then fired it into the night sky. A large red star burned brightly as it arced through the sky. Seconds later the rapid whirring of propellers could be heard. A soft metal clang came from just outside the window. The soldiers motioned for Hermione to come to the window. Moving slowly towards the window she wondered what was going to happen and what she was supposed to do when she got to the window. As she drew closer she detected the faint outline of a ladder. Following the ladder with her eyes she gasped when she saw the Blackhawk. Looking back at the ladder she began to wonder about the safeness of the ladder, but her thoughts were interrupted when a voice called out, 'Just grab a hold and we'll reel it back in!'

Taking the voice's advice she grabbed the ladder with every ounce of strength she could muster. Stifling a scream when the ladder jolted upwards and shuddered as it was reeled back into the helicopter. Keeping her eyes shut as the ladder rose from the window. After what seemed like an eternity she felt hands grasp her hands and a voice cry out, 'Gotcha.'

Feeling the metal floor beneath her she opened her eyes to see Hogwarts speeding away.


	3. Fudge's Worst Nightmare

Chapter Three

'Hello Ms. Granger,' said a voice off to Hermione's left.

Jumping at the sound of the voice Hermione snapped off several curt questions, "Who exactly are you and how do you know who I am?" The realizing what she was in asked, in a slightly less hostile manner, "And exactly how are you able to use these muggle aircraft in the vicinity of Hogwarts?"

'Patience, Ms. Granger, it will all be explained in time,' the voice paused, giving Hermione time to see that the voice was coming from a figure crouching down to her left, 'Whiskey, Hotel Golf is en route to base, keep things under wraps until I signal, roger that?'

'Kilo, this is Whiskey, roger that Delta is en route to base also, along with PFC Delta Oscar.'

'Copy that Whiskey, be seein' ya.'

'Roger that, Whiskey out.'

The figure turned to face Hermione, a small sliver of red light shone across part of his face, revealing practically nothing about this figure. 'Ms. Granger, I'm sorry about the scare that any of this may have given you, but with the recent events as of last year it was necessary. I can't tell you anything right now, well… at least not until we land, which should only be a few more minutes.'

Hermione not knowing how to respond nodded her head and turned to stare out of the open side doors on the helicopter, watching the trees of the Dark Forest blaze by. She knew that she should be frightened but for some reason wasn't. Instead she felt somewhat exhilarated, or maybe that was just the adrenaline rush, she didn't know. Off in the distance specks of light became visible and were growing steadily brighter. It wasn't long before she could make out the large white H's and the many moving figures running about. And the sound of diesel engines idling. Before Hermione knew it the helicopter was hovering over one of the H's and was descending on top of it. The helicopter touched down without so much as a bump, and before Hermione could make the attempt to get out herself the figure jumped out of the Blackhawk, turned around and extended his hand to assist her out of the helicopter. Wanting to be back on solid ground she grabbed the outstretched hand and planted her feet solidly on the ground.

'Follow me, please,' said the figure releasing her hand, and began to walk away from the helicopter. Hermione turned to follow him. As she walked behind the figure she deduced that she had been taken to some kind of military installation, more noticeably an American military installation. The two had been walking for a few minutes when they came upon a large flagpole, which was illuminated by several lights. Fluttering in the wind were three large flags. The top most flag was the American Flag, just below it was another flag that Hermione hadn't seen before, and the final flag was a red flag that bore the Hogwarts Crest, and in shimmering gold letters were the words "Dumbledore's Army" written just above the crest.

Continuing on past the flagpole a familiar shape came into view, walking along side someone she didn't know, the light from the pole flickered onto the tiny form of a House-elf with a pencil like long nose, and great green tennis ball sized eyes.

"Dobby! What are you doing here?" It was the second time this night that the house-elf had appeared unexpectedly. However, this time Dobby was different. Sitting on Dobby's head was a helmet that was the same as the ones that she had seen on the soldiers, he was also wearing the same type of clothes, and had on combat boots. But most noticeable was that resting in his hands was a rifle that was the exact same as the rifle that the soldiers carried except that it had been shrunken to fit his arm length. Dobby's face no longer had the same exuberant expression on his face, but instead wore one of fierce determination. As a whole the house-elf had been transformed from his usually comical self to being down outright scary looking. Dobby fell into step with Hermione without saying a word. In front of them another had joined walking alongside the figure that was already in front of her.

Minutes later the group reached their destination, a large olive drab tent. The figure pulled a flap to the side and motioned for Hermione to enter first. Stepping through the flap she found herself standing on a blue carpeted floor, in the middle of the room was a large polished oak desk, which held surprisingly little stuff on the top. Though directly in the middle of the desk was a plaque that bore the inscription:

****

Major General Kitoriav Lightningstrider

Sitting directly behind the desk and to Hermione's right was another, more heavily cluttered desk, which held a computer, and a light tan fedora. Between the two desks was a large leatherback chair. In front of the oak desk were four other chairs, though not as big as the one behind the desks. To the left of the desk hung what looked to be like quidditch robes, hanging above an olive drab footlocker. Behind Hermione she heard footsteps coming from the outside. Turning her head she saw for the first time in full light what both of the figures looked like. Quickly looking over the first figure who stepped through into the tent she spotted the words "Lightningstrider" in somewhat faded black letters above the right breast pocket on his woodland patterned camouflage tunic. Kitoriav Lightningstrider was slightly taller than Hermione (who was about five foot five inches), had very closely cropped hair, Hermione guess no more than a quarter of an inch on the top, his face was somewhat tanned and gaunt with a stern rigid look, somewhat offset by his eyes. Hie eyes were dark brown, practically black, and could probably fill several novels worth of stories. 

The second figure's name or at least last name was Dekker. Dekker was much taller than either Kitoriav or Hermione. Dekker and Kitoriav shared the same haircut, but his face was less tanned than Kitoriav's and his face resembled that of a skull with skin stretched over it. Dekker's eyes were a cold and merciless yellow, and had an almost insane look to them. Dobby however, looked the same as he did a few minutes ago, except a much less intimidating character compared to Dekker. 

Kitoriav walked past Hermione to stand behind the large oak desk, and motioned for them all to sit down. Hermione sat down in the chair farthest to the right (to her relief Dobby took the chair directly to her left), while Dekker moved to stand just behind Kitoriav. Kitoriav pulled the large leather chair up behind him and sat down. 

'I expect that you know my name already, but for the sake of formality I shall introduce myself. My name, as you can see, is Major General Kitoriav Lightningstider. And this is Sergeant Major Dekker, and Dekker is not his last name. Now I expect that you have surveyed the entire tent, and might be wondering about the quidditch robes over there. Well I will go ahead and tell you about that before we get on to business. Not long before y'all first set foot inside of Hogwarts I was the captain of an International Quidditch team, known as the Carolina Spiders. Our colors were of course black and gold. I met Dekker whilst I was still at the Carolina Wizarding school. Dekker was an exchange student from Germany, and we've known each other ever since. I don't know if you followed quidditch much but the Carolina Spiders won the Quidditch World Cup eight years ago, I don't remember who we played against, but it was a close game. Anyways, enough with the quidditch history, the team no longer officially exists since we disbanded it to help Dumbledore fight against Voldemort (Hermione made extra careful not flinch at the name), and we've been doing our job ever since then. 

After our good friend Harry took down Voldemort, I returned to the States, and enlisted in the military there for four years. Though, my thoughts of reenlisting were shot down when Dumbledore told me about Voldemort returning, I sent off owls to get everyone back together we were reforming and that he was back. And we were once again back on the job.

Which brings me to what we actually do. Now the two of us are just two of the seven Spider Quidditch players, the other five are off doing other jobs. Anyway, our job is to make sure that you three are always safe. Though we've always been lurking out of sight and in much smaller numbers. However, due to last years events and the full return of Voldemort we've been operating in full force. You didn't know it, but the second y'all arrived at Kings Cross we had two Blackhawks covering the train all the way to the Hogsmeade station, and even then we still had a few hovering near by, plus troops on the ground.'

Suddenly many things were beginning to click into place, as to certain events in the past. But one thing kept coming up. "Exactly how are you managing to fly those muggle helicopters around and on top of Hogwarts? It says in Hogwarts, A History that muggle substitutes for magic wouldn't work."

'Ah, yes. Well you see Dumbledore knew a thing or two and put some kind of charm on all of our equipment that allows us to work, but also to repel unfriendly spells. Plus it certainly keeps our rifles clean and in perfect condition. Since we've been forced into full alert we figured we'd need some kind of name, so we decided to give Fudge a few dozen heart attacks if he ever found out about us and we decided on the name "Dumbledore's Army", hence the flag. And I doubt you know what the second flag on the flag pole was, am I correct?' 

Hermione nodded her head in agreement.

'Well a long time ago thirteen Southern States, back in '61 (1861) decided they'd had enough of Northern oppression so they seceded from the Union, this sparked our Second War of Independence, also known as the War of Northern Aggression. My home state of North Carolina was one of the states that left the Union to form the Confederate States of America. That flag was the flag that was flown from '61 to '65 and some folk still fly it with pride and remember General Lee's words at the battle of Gettysburg that there will be another day. Bah… I've started rambling again, sorry. Hopefully that explains the flag to you,' Hermione nodded her head in agreement. 'Now I expect that you'll probably tell most of this to Harry, and Ron when you get back but these next few things that I'm going to tell you must not be told to anyone, at least not yet.

With all of the things going on this year there might be certain circumstances in which you'll need a quick extract from, or need some extra firepower, or maybe just a quick transport. And you'll need a means to contact us quickly, from your exact location. So I want you to take these two things.' Kitoriav produced a small round disk and a flat object covered in brown wrapping paper and handed them to Dekker. Dekker then proceeded to walk around the oak table and handed them to Hermione with the utmost look of mistrust, and loathing humanly possible and then some. Hermione took the two objects and, in a shaky voice that was higher than normal, "Thanks."

Dekker gave a slight nod and returned to his original position. Kitoriav waited a couple of seconds before continuing, 'Now the round disk is an emergency beacon, if you get into any kind of trouble that you don't think that y'all can handle don't think twice press the button and we'll roll up in full force. Now it'll take a bit for us to get to your location, so Private First Class Dobby here is the highest-ranking House-elf in Dumbledore's Army. He commands a special squad of freed House-elves that will be the first on the scene; they'll hold the perimeter until we arrive. Now should a situation arise where Pfc. Dobby can't get there then we'll try and get there as fast as possible. Once we arrive on the scene we'll secure the perimeter and then get you and who ever you're with the feth out of there. Now the other package is a two-way mirror, needless to say I stole the idea from Sirius and I want updates on the goings on at school, especially Umbridge. Now I've done practically all the talking here, do you have any questions?'

Hermione nodded and asked, "Why is it that you're only explaining this to me and not Ron and Harry, or the both of us together?"

Kitoriav thought on this for a moment and the said, 'Well, for a number of reasons. A few I'm not at liberty to say and another I won't reveal right now. Harry has enough trouble to deal with right now, especially in the area of anger management… though completely understandable after last year, but still the constant venting on whoever is closest certainly was a big turn-off. Ron? Well… I don't know why we chose you instead of Ron, I guess we just liked you better.'

His response gave Hermione a start "Just liked you better", what did that mean? Hermione put that out of her mind for a few and then asked, "How many are in Dumbledore's Army?"

'Well as far as ground personnel goes about two hundred infantry, a company of tanks, and plenty of helicopters. Though I don't know the exact number of support personnel and support vehicles.'

Hermione wasn't sure how much damage a tank could do, but based on what happened in the common room was proof enough to her as to the destructive capabilities of these soldiers, even though she didn't see what happened in the common room. And to think that all because someone "just liked her better" she had an almost immeasurable amount of firepower backing her every move and decision. The possibilities were endless. Though most of these thoughts were quickly crushed underfoot when Hermione began thinking what would happen if Umbridge found out and alerted Fudge. While Hermione was deep in thought on this Kitoriav looked down at his watch and exclaimed, 'Yikes! Hermione, you don't mind us calling you Hermione do you? It'll certainly make things easier for us should an emergency arise,' Hermione nodded yes, 'Okay well it was nice meeting you in person but we need to get you and Dobby back to Hogwarts right now.'

Kitoriav stood up and said something to Dekker who left the tent at a run. 'Oh, Hermione one last thing,' Kitoriav handed her a small box. Hermione opened it and saw two black bars connected to each other. 

Kitoriav snapped to attention, followed by Dobby, and saluted, 'Welcome to Dumbledore's Army Captain Granger.' Not knowing how to respond Hermione did her best to imitate what Kitoriav had just done.

'Oh and you can just refer to me as "Kit" because I can understand how difficult it can be to say "Kitoriav". You'll receive your BDUs, boots, and other such uniforms later this week. But for right now we gotta get you back to school.'

The trio set off at a run to the nearest Blackhawk that was already ready to fly. Dobby had barely gotten into the helicopter when the side doors were slammed shut and the Blackhawk was speeding off towards Hogwarts.

Twenty minutes later Hermione was standing just inside the window when Kit called out to her, 'Hey, Hermione!'

Hermione turned around and yelled back, "Yes, what is it?"

'I want you to think on this, what will you do when wands fail you?' Kit had barely gotten the words out when the Blackhawk once again left Hogwarts to return to base.

What will you do when wands fail you? The question reverberated around in Hermione's head all the way to her bed, on which she collapsed asleep before she was halfway through the fall with only one thing on her mind. 

What will you do when wands fail you?


	4. Kitoriav Lightningstrider

Chapter Four

Despite the events of the previous night Hermione still managed to get down to the Great Hall before both Ron and Harry. Hermione sat at the Gryffindor table chatting with Ginny and Neville when Harry and Ron arrived. Ron was rubbing the top of his head and saying to Harry, "My head hurts, I think when they pulled me out of the bed my head hit the floor first."

"Ron, I got hit by shards of glass and then I got stepped on twice! And so far everyone I've talked to doesn't remember what happened."

Neville turned and spoke to Harry, "I can't remember the last time I was that scared," Neville gave a shudder, then attempted to say something else but shook his head and went back to eating breakfast.

Next to speak was Ginny, "I asked a few people about it, but they all looked at me—"

"—Like you were—"

"—Crazy?" Fred and George appeared behind Ginny who jumped at the sound of their voices, she had not heard them walk up behind her. "So far I think we're the only ones who remember it."

Harry turned to Hermione and asked, "Hermione you've been awful quiet do you remember what happened last night? Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing them bring you out of the girls dormitory."

Quickly trying to think of a plausible story to tell them Hermione began slowly, "I was erm--."

"Miss Granger?" Professor McGonagall was walking in-between the House tables towards them, "Miss Granger, the Headmaster would like to speak with you."

Relieved at the fact that Professor McGonagall had appeared the perfect time Hermione grabbed her bag and followed Professor McGonagall up to the Headmaster's office.

"Fizzing Whizbee," The stone Gargoyle leapt out of the way, Professor McGonagall motioned for Hermione to enter. Walking into the office Hermione quickly took a seat and awaited the arrival of Dumbledore.

"Ah, Miss Granger. Good morning," Professor Dumbledore stood in front of a door that Hermione could only guess to be the Headmaster's private quarters.

"Good morning, Professor Dumbledore."

Moving from the door to his chair Dumbledore began to speak, "It has come to my attention that you have been introduced to Kitoriav Lightningstider, tell me what did you make of him?"

Not quiet sure what to say Hermione responded as best she could, "Well… he seems to be loyal to you in the fight against Voldemort, though his friend Dekker scares me."

The Headmaster gave a soft chuckle and smiled, "Yes, Dekker is quiet an imposing character. At least until you've earned his trust. Yes, Kit is a fully loyal and dedicated, as he likes to call it "Southern Gentlemen". Kit is possibly one of the most loyal individuals I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I find him to be most amusing, he's a very resourceful, and intelligent in the field of battle however, the things of which we do on a day-to-day basis elude him.

Kitoriav has the spirit of one who was born too late, in a way he is like Moody, he will examine your every move searching for some hidden motive, or meaning. Though, I will say that you seem to be the exception, he trusts you probably more than he trusts anyone else. One does not usually come across a trust like that very often. Getting back to the point, Kit has the spirit of someone who was born in the South during the War of Northern Aggression, compiled on top of an already unwavering love for his country of which he will willingly give his life at a moments notice in her defense. And in a way he feels the same way about America as he does about you, if I am correct in my assumption that he will do anything to insure your safety, regardless of what that calls for. 

In fact I think it would be safe to say that our friend Kitoriav is just a unique combination of old-fashioned ideals combined into one, living in a time where those ideas are dispensed with. A sad thought, yes. However it is good to know that there are people like that out there defending us all."

"Professor Dumbledore, Kit always spoke of five others, do you know who they are?"

"Yes, the other five of which he will speak often of is the other five Carolina Quidditch players. He will introduce you to them eventually."

What will you do when wands fail? The question popped back into her mind. "Professor Dumbledore, what do wizards do when their wands fail them?"

Dumbledore looked at Hermione over the top of his glasses and said, "I'm afraid that I can not give you an answer. Though I do have the feeling that Kit has revealed a clue as to his future plan, of which I have no idea as to what it is. Now I think it would be best if you were to return to the Great Hall before Professor McGonagall hands out schedules."

Hermione nodded stood up, but stopped and asked, "What should I tell to those who still remember the events of last night?"

"Just tell them the what you feel they need to know."

Once again Hermione nodded and left the Headmaster's Office. Hermione entered into the Great Hall just in time as Professor McGonagall was exiting the Great Hall, she stopped on her way out to hand Hermione her schedule. Running up to Harry and Ron the trio set off towards History of Magic.


	5. Questions and Orders

Chapter Five

The day started off slowly with the ever-vigilant dullness of Professor Binns's History of Magic, a subject that if a different teacher taught it would be interesting. After threatening to not allow Ron or Harry to copy her notes before the exam the three walked out into the chilly September air, complete with a fine misty rain, and found a secluded corner under a dripping balcony. The trio agreed that Professor Snape would most likely give them an extremely difficult potion when the conversation turned to Hermione, who was attempting to decide what she would tell them about the events of last night. "What'd Dumbledore want to see you about this morning?"

"What?"

"What'd Dumbledore want to talk to you about this morning?"

"Oh, erm… Well he wanted to—Harry, look behind you."

Harry turned around to see Cho walking towards them calling out Harry's name. Hermione let out a breath of relief as she still didn't know what to tell them, and what not to tell them. In an attempt to keep from being asked again Hermione engaged herself in an argument with Ron over his accusation of Cho's support of the Tornados and keeping it going until they reached the dungeon. 

As they had suspected Snape had indeed given them an extremely difficult Potion. Hermione set about mixing together the ingredients while still debating what to say. By the time she was finished she had decided that when it was asked she would respond with, I'll tell you later. And when the proper time came she would tell them everything.

At the end of the double period Hermione and Ron finished cleaning up their cauldrons they set off after Harry who had already began eating. 

Sitting down Hermione grabbed a bit of Shepherd's Pie she said to Harry, "That was really unfair, your potion wasn't nearly as bad as Goyle's. When he put it in his flagon the whole thing shattered and set his robes on fire."

Harry glowered at his plate and replied, "Yeah, well since when has Snape ever been fair to me?"

The three of them sat in silence since they all knew that Harry and Snape were mutual enemies.

"I did think he might be a bit better this year. I mean… you know…" Hermione stopped to look around to make sure no one might over hear them, "…Now that he's in the Order and everything."

"Poisonous toadstools don't change their spots," said Ron, "Anyway, I've always thought Dumbledore was cracked for trusting Snape, where's the evidence that he really ever stopped working for You-Know-Who?"

Hermione snapped back saying, "I think Dumbledore's probably got plenty of evidence, even if he doesn't share it with you, Ron." 

Ron had just opened his mouth to argue back when Harry interjected angrily, "Oh, shut up the pair of you," Hermione and Ron froze with mixed expressions, "Can't you give it a rest? You're always having a go at each other, it's driving me mad." With that Harry left his shepherd's pie he stormed out of the Great Hall leaving the two of them sitting there.

Ron was the first to speak, "Well… now we know his opinion on this matter."

Hermione, who was felt hurt more than anything else, said, "I do wish he would stop taking out his anger on us, though I think it would be wise for us to try and not argue in front of him."

"Yeah…"

At the sound of the bell Hermione stood up and said good-bye to Ron as they set off in different directions, only to meet back up for the final class of the day. Double Defense Against the Dark Arts. Standing outside the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom Hermione saw that Harry and Ron were already inside. Seeing that Umbridge was also in there Hermione took a deep breath and walked in.

Fuming Hermione stormed into the common room, she knew not to expect much from Professor Umbridge, but not this. Harry had gotten a weeks detention for telling the truth about Voldemort, and even worse they weren't even going to be allowed to practice spells. Entering into the Girls' Dormitory Hermione closed the door behind her and stopped. She walked slowly towards her bed, which was covered in neatly stacked and folded clothes. Sitting at the end of the bed were two pyramids of olive-drab socks, beside the socks lay a pair of black gloves. In the middle of the bed was a stack of seven olive-drab T-shirts. Next to the T-shirt was a stack of five woodland patterned camouflaged tunics. Directly beneath the tunic was a stack of five woodland patterned camouflaged pants. And at the top of her bed, laying on her pillow was a hat, however it was not a normal ball cap. Unlike a normal hat the bill was slightly shorter in length, it lay flat with no curve in the shape. The part of the hat where you put your head looked as though someone had cut it in half and then put a flat piece of cloth over the hole and it also was woodland camouflage patterned. Underneath the hat was a letter.

Hermione,

I've asked Dobby to deliver these to you. Since you're in Dumbledore's Army I have to tell you a few things. Number one, the chain of command is used, and enforced. So that means I give an order, and it is to be followed without question. Not pretty, but there's no alternative.

Second of all when you wear a helmet, or your Jeep Cap you're hair must not go past the collar on your tunic. Though when wearing your helmet you're hair must not be visible, you're bangs are not allowed to go past your eye brows, and I would also advise not having your bangs visible when wearing your helmet. Fingernails will not be in an excess of one quarter of an inch, measuring from the tip of the finger. Under normal circumstances, these measures would apply at all times, but due to the secretive nature (currently) you are allowed to not follow the above regulations during school, or Hogsmeade trips unless notified in advance by either myself or another ranking officer.

Third, due to the nature of events as of last year you are hearby ordered to wear your BDUs at all times, wear them beneath your school robes during school. The BDUs will appear invisible to all when under other articles of clothing. When only the BDUs are worn, and there are no non-Dumbledore's Army issue clothing on top of your BDUs they will be visible. You will be notified in advance as to when to wear only your BDUs. 

Fourth, when wearing BDUs all clothes will be tucked in. Your tunic will be the only exception, your pants will be tucked in to your boots (which you will receive at a later date, along with your helmet and other items). Underneath your tunic you will wear the DA issue olive-drab T-shirt, which will be tucked in. And don't worry about how hot it'll be wearing all those layers of clothes the BDUs have a charm that will regulate your body temperature, the BDUs are also charmed to resist most curses, jinxes, and other such spells.

These are your orders, carry them out Captain.

Major General Kitoriav Lightningstrider

Putting down the letter Hermione set about following the first orders she had received.


	6. Law of the Land

Chapter Six

Feeling slightly awkward wearing an extra layer of clothes, especially since she couldn't see them, Hermione walked from the Great Hall to the common room with Harry and Ron. 

"_Mimbulus mimbletonia,"_ said Hermione when they reached the Fat Lady's portrait. Walking through the portrait hole they quickly grabbed each of their favorite armchair near the fire. Crookshanks jumped up onto Hermione's lap and curled up like a furry ginger cushion. 

Sitting quietly in thought suddenly the rage that she had felt earlier towards Umbridge resurfaced, "_How_ can Dumbledore have let this happen?" Harry and Ron jumped and Crookshanks leapt off her lap with an affronted look. Pounding the arms of her chair she continued, "How can he let that terrible woman teach us? And in our O.W.L. year too!"

"Well, we've never had great Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, have we? You know what it's like, Hagrid told us, nobody wants the job, they say it's jinxed," said Harry.

"Yes, but to employ someone who's actually refusing to let us do magic! _What's_ Dumbledore playing at?" Countered Hermione.

"And she's trying to get people to spy for her. Remember when she said she wanted us to come and tell her if we heard anyone saying You-Know-Who's back?" Ron said darkly.

"Of course she's here to spy on us all, that's obvious, why else would Fudge have wanted her to come?" snapped Hermione.

"Don't start arguing again," said Harry as Ron had opened his mouth to retaliate, he then turned to Hermione with an accusing look, "And Hermione so far you've managed to avoid answering any questions about what happened to you last night. So tell us, what exactly did happen?"

Hermione looked down at the floor and let out a breath then looking back up towards Harry and Ron but instead of looking at either of them she stared out past them as she replayed the events of the previous night in her mind. Once she had decided what she would tell them she began, "First I'm going to have to ask you to let me tell the whole thing before you start asking questions, okay? (Harry and Ron nodded yes) Well I was in the dormitory…" Hermione launched into an explanation of the events of last night. 

When she was done the two of them sat there and blinked. Harry was the first to speak, "Well… er..." before Harry could figure out what to say some people walked into common room.

Ron chipped in quickly, "Let's do the homework and get it over with."

Getting up quickly they grabbed their schoolbags from the corner and quickly returned to their chairs before anyone else could take them. Dipping his quill into his ink Ron said, "Shall we do Snape's stuff first?" Pulling a piece of parchment out of his bag he began writing muttering the words as he wrote them, "_'The propteries of moonstone and its uses in potion making.'_" Looking up at Hermione he asked, "What exactly are the properties of moonstone and its uses in potion making?"

Hermione, however, wasn't paying attention. She was squinting over into the far corner of the room where Fred, George, and Lee Jordan were now standing in the middle of a group of first years, all of which were chewing something that probably came out of the brown paper bag that Fred was holding.

"I'm sorry, but they've just gone to far this time. Ron, come on," Commanded Hermione as she stood up looking furious.

Attempting to play for time Ron quickly said, "I – What? No – come on we can't tell them off for giving out sweets."

"Ron, you know perfectly well that those are bits of Nosebleed Nougat or – or Puking Pastilles or –"

"Fainting Fancies?" Suggested Harry.

One by one each of the first years slumped over unconscious, some fell onto the floor others heads' just lolled over to one side but each one of them had their tongue hanging out. On lookers were laughing, Hermione however stuck one hand into her left pocket (she had neglected to tell them about the emergency beacon) squared her shoulders and marched over her head held high. 

"That's enough!" Ordered Hermione, both Fred and George looked up in mild surprise.

Yeah, you're right," said George nodding, "this dosage looks strong enough, doesn't it?"

"You can't test your rubbish on students, especially first years!"

"We're paying them!" replied Fred indignantly.

"I don't care, it could be dangerous!" retorted Hermione her hand in her pocket squeezed the emergency beacon tighter, but she didn't activate it.

"Rubbish," said Fred.

"Calm down, Hermione, they're fine!" said Lee reassuringly as he walked from first year to first year, pushing purple sweets into their open mouths.

"Yeah, look, they're coming round now," said George.

A few of the first years were stirring; most of them looked shocked to find themselves in whatever position they were. They had obviously not warned them what the sweets were going to do.

George looked at towards a small dark-haired girl lying at his feet and asked kindly, "Feeling all right?"

"I-I think so," she said shakily. 

"Excellent," said Fred happily, but in the next second Hermione grabbed both the clipboard and bag from him.

"It is NOT excellent!"

"'Course it is, they're alive, aren't they?" said Fred angrily.

"You can't do this, what if you'd made one of them really ill?" Hermione desperately wanted to press the button and bring this argument to a close, but suddenly she knew exactly what to do.

"We're not going to make them ill, we've already tested them all on ourselves, this is just to see if everyone reacts the same –"

"If you don't stop doing it, I'm going to –"

"Put us in detention?" said Fred in a testing voice.

"Make us write lines?" said George, smirking.

Onlookers were laughing, but Hermione drew herself up to her full height, eyes narrowed and her seemed to crackle with electricity.

"No," he voice quivered with anger, "but I will write to your mother."

"You wouldn't," said George, horrified, taking a step back from her.

"Oh, yes I would," said Hermione. "I can't stop you from eating the stupid things yourselves, but you're not giving them to first years."

Fred and George were thunderstruck, as far as they were concerned Hermione's threat was way below the belt. With a last quivering glare she thrust Fred's clipboard and the paper bag back into his arms and stalked back to her chair by the fire. Ron was stooped so low in his seat that his nose was roughly level with his knees.

"Thanks for your support, Ron," Hermione said acidly.

"You handled it fine by yourself," Ron mumbled in reply.

After staring at her paper for a few seconds she said, "Oh, it's no good, I can't concentrate now. I'm going to bed."

Wrenching open her bags as though to put her books away, she pulled out two misshapen woolly objects, placed them carefully on a table by the fireplace, covered them with a few screwed-up bits of parchment and a broken quill, then standing back to admire the effect.

After a short argument with Ron about the validity of her hats, actually counting as clothes Hermione grabbed her bag and marched into the girls' dormitory. Dropping her bag off at the foot of her bed she changed into her nightgown, though unsure if she was allowed to remove her BDUs at night she decided that it would be best to leave them on. 

Lying on the bed Hermione closed her eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep, but just before she went to sleep the question returned.

__

What will you do when wands fail you?


	7. Malfoy's Mistake

Chapter Seven

The first week of school passed by mostly without incident, finally changing into the weekend. Sitting quietly in her favorite armchair Hermione starred out the windows of the common room and into the brilliantly blue sky. Not wanting to waste such a beautiful day by staying inside Hermione stood up and walked out of the common room towards the lake. 

Reaching the exterior of the castle Hermione took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air. Looking over at the Quidditch Pitch she saw two figures riding their brooms, one was defending the goal posts whilst the other tried to get the quaffle into one of the three goals. Turning away from the Quidditch pitch she looked hopefully towards Hagrid's hoping that he would be there, but it was still deserted.

Feeling bored Hermione walked out to the lake and found a spot that was relatively secluded and had a tree of which to provide something to prop herself up against. Sitting under the tree Hermione watched the giant squid occasionally pop up from under the water. With nothing else better to do Hermione plucked at the grass surrounding her, and thought on the question that had been troubling her since day one of school. 

__

What will you do when wands fail you?

Lying prone at the edge of the dark forest Dekker spoke into his Mic, 'Kilo 1-1 this is Juliet 2-5 over.'

'Two-five go ahead.'

'One-one, Delta Mike and gang approaching Hotel Golf, over.'

'Roger that Two-five, how many indigenous personnel around over.'

'One-one, more than I would like over.'

'Two-five, roger that. We're moving to your position now. Over.'

'Roger that.'

"Well, well, well if it isn't the perfect little mudblood," said Draco venomously.

Hiding her surprise Hermione looked up at the three Slytherins with a bored expression. "Malfoy."

'Sergeant Major, how're things lookin'?' Inquired Kit as he dropped down onto the ground beside Dekker. 

'Not too good, got no teachers, doesn't look like anyone who'd stand up against Malfoy is around,' replied Dekker pulling his binoculars away from his eyes.

'Feth, I don't like this one bit,' Kit let out a sigh and turned to face the soldiers who were lying prone behind them. 'Stay sharp, if anything goes down fire over their heads do not aim to kill, hooah?'

'Hooah!'

Turning back Dekker handed the binoculars over to Kit. Taking the binoculars Kit placed them up to his eyes and watched the scene degenerate from bad enough to worse. Malfoy's face was redder than a quaffle and Crabbe and Goyle weren't looking too friendly. A wave of anger and hate swept through Kit's body, his eyes went dead and cold. His hands went dry and steady his breathing slowed. Through the binoculars he watched Malfoy say something to Crabbe and Goyle who lunged forward to grab Hermione.

Time slowed down, Kit threw the binoculars down to the ground and picked up his rifle. 

Hermione braced herself as she saw Crabbe and Goyle grow tense and began to move towards her, then it was almost as if time stopped.

Harry had just thrown the quaffle towards one of the goals and Ron sped off to intercept it. Ron grabbed the quaffle mere inches from the hole. At the second Ron grabbed it a loud bang shattered the still air, Harry jumped a few inches off of his broomstick. Ron nearly fell off his broomstick. 

Kit squeezed the trigger on his M16 and loosed a round. Immediately after he fired he fired another two rounds off. After he fired those three rounds every soldier began firing, though none of it aimed at anyone. 

Malfoy was spun in a circle as the bullet pierced his shoulder; Crabbe and Goyle also took a bullet to the shoulder, each of them dropping down. Suddenly the air was filled with the sound of gunfire other students began screaming and tried to make themselves invisible by throwing themselves to the ground.

'Go, go, go!' Yelled Kit as he stood up from his position and ran towards Hermione, followed by all but a few soldiers who continued to pour fire into the air.

'Sergeant Major, get us an evac outta here now!' Ordered Kit.

'Roger that sir!' Responded Dekker before he turned and yelled into his mic, 'Super Two-four and Two-eight get yourselves in here, we need an extract yesterday!'

'Dunningham, smoke! Yellow, now!'

'Hooah!' Came the reply as he unclipped a smoke grenade from his web gear. 

Harry and Ron hovered beside each other as they watched a plume of yellow smoke go up by the lake. Ron was the first to speak, "Bloody hell, you don't think…"

Harry cut him off with a nod and then said, "Yes."

"Should we try and help?"

"I don't know."

Hermione was pinned to the ground by a wounded Goyle, and was trying to make herself as small as possible when a pair of hands grabbed her under the arms and lifted her out from under Goyle.

Kit lifted Hermione out from under Goyle as two small helicopters flew over the grounds where they were.

'Sir! The Littlebirds are gonna cover our extract, Blackhawks'll be here a minute!' Dunningham.

Kit nodded then turned to Hermione and asked, 'Hermione are you hit?'

Hermione shook her head, tears were streaming from her eyes and she choked out a reply, "No, but I feel as though my legs have been crushed."

A smile broke out on Kit's hardened face, then he embraced Hermione in a bone crushing hug and said, 'It's okay Hermione we got an extract on the way, it'll all be over soon.'

Releasing Hermione he patted her on the shoulder twice then the smile on his face disappeared when he turned to look at the three Slytherins on the ground. 'Hermione, it'll be best if you don't watch. Sergeant Major!'

'Yes, sir?'

'Take Hermione to wait with Mara, and get Harry and Ron over here. You'll find 'em over there at the Quidditch Pitch.'

'Hooah, sir.'

Kit waited until Hermione was being walked away from the tree he then grabbed Malfoy by the collar of his robes and pulled him up by one hand, then thrust him up against the tree. Kit stepped onto Goyle's body and moved his face barely two inches away from Malfoy and let out a little chuckle. 'Look at you, you're the most pathetic thing I've ever seen in my life. If I were you, I'd show a little more respect to Hermione because she's the only thing that saved your life here today Malfoy. The only reason you're still alive is because she doesn't approve of killin' little worms like you, she's one for giving people chances, a much better person than I am.'

Draco tried to move and muttered something about "my father" Kit let out a blood-curdling laugh then stepped off of Goyle's body and kicked Goyle out of the way. 'Son, I don't know how old you are, but if you're depending on your father to fight your battles for you. Well he apparently didn't do too good of a job fightin' this one for ya now did he? And here's what I think of your father,' Kit swung his rifle off of his shoulder and hit Draco in the stomach with the butt of the rifle. 

Seeing what was happening Dekker ran over, and pulled Kit away from Malfoy and said, 'Sir, Blackhawks'll be landing in a second. And as much as I'd like to let you continue I can't. I know you too well Kit; you'll kill him. And we can't have that,' he paused and cast a glance at Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, 'Though I'll be the first ones to say we ought to, that way Voldemort won't have three spies inside Hogwarts. But we know the orders.'

Kit's face softened and he let out a deep breath, nodding his head he said, 'Yeah, roger that sergeant major. Roger that… Get these three loaded on the second Blackhawk, leave some guards and the rest of us'll take the first Blackhawk back to base.'

Dekker let go of Kit, saluted then left. Kit returned the salute took one last glance at Draco then spit at his feet. By this time the two Blackhawks were on the ground.

Harry and Ron were still hovering in the same spot when a helicopter flew right in front of them and hovered there. The two cast nervous glances at each other both thinking if they could out run it when a voice came over a loudspeaker on the helicopter, 'Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley land now.'

The voice on the loudspeaker left no room for questions, the two flew as fast as they could towards the ground. When they touched down two soldiers walked out to meet them, one pulled a smoke grenade from his web gear and threw it into the middle of the pitch, creating a pillar of red smoke.

A few minutes later a Blackhawk helicopter landed on the field sending dirt, grass and smoke into their eyes. The soldiers were wearing goggles over their eyes grabbed Harry and Ron and yelled into their ears, 'Leave your brooms, they'll be here when you get back!'

Harry and Ron immediately let go of their broomsticks, and were marched to the helicopter once they were directly under the propellers they could see clearly into the cargo area. Inside were several soldiers all with their rifles trained out of the helicopter. Several muzzles followed Harry and Ron all the way until they were in the cargo area. Once inside they were seated as far back as they could possibly be, the two soldiers who walked with Harry and Ron sat down in front of them. Once they were all seated the helicopter lifted off of the ground and sped off in the direction of the Dark Forest. 

Looking over the soldiers' shoulders Harry spotted Hermione; she was sitting directly opposite of them. Her head was laid on the shoulder of one of the soldiers who had his arm wrapped behind her back and was patting Hermione on the shoulder. Hermione had tears streaming freely down her face.

Kit sat opposite of Harry and Ron. Hermione had laid her head on his shoulder and was crying freely. He was constantly patting her on the shoulder saying, 'It's okay Hermione it's all over, it's okay. Everything'll be fine don't you worry about it. Whether or not it's going to help, but I've been wanting to do that for a _long_ time. Though I just wish it didn't have to happen that way.'

Kit paused patting Hermione's shoulder just long enough to remove his helmet and put it on the ground, then he continued patting Hermione's shoulder, rocking her back and forth repeating, 'It's okay Hermione, it's okay.'

Halfway to the base Hermione fell silent, Kit looked to make sure she was okay and found her asleep. He gave her shoulder one last pat, smiled and leaned back in the chair between the two crew chiefs that manned the miniguns. Resting his head against the top of the chair he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.


	8. The Black Flag

Chapter Eight

__

'Feth,' said Kit as he watched Malfoy yell something to Crabbe and Goyle who immediately moved to grab Hermione. 

Throwing the binoculars down on the ground he grabbed his rifle and he aimed it towards Malfoy. By now Kit no longer was in control, but O'Malley. Adjusting the rifle he positioned it so that the iron sights were aligned with Malfoy's head. His breathing slowed and his rifle became steady. Seeing the change in Kit, Dekker quietly said, 'It's not your time O'Malley, Kit control yourself.'

Kit's body seemed to relax, and the muzzle moved from its current target's head to his shoulder. Kit slowed his breath and waited until the shot was true. When it was he squeezed the trigger and loosed a round. Not waiting to see if it hit Kit quickly shifted his aim to the shoulders of Crabbe and Goyle and fired off two shots. Answering his three shots was the suppressing fire provided by the soldiers around them. 'Go, go, go!'

Hermione slowly awoke from an exhausted sleep. Looking around she saw that they were still in the helicopter. Feeling a weight on her right shoulder she turned and saw a camouflaged arm wrapped behind her back and the hand resting on her shoulder. Looking to the left she saw Kit was staring at a spot on the floor in front of them, not blinking. Looking directly ahead there were two soldiers, and behind them were the unconscious forms of Harry and Ron. Surrounding them were other soldiers who were sitting on the edge of the floor, their legs dangling out of the helicopter. 

Blinking Hermione realized that her eyes were dry and sore. Wiping her face with her hands she began to remember the events of that day. Looking down at her hands she saw that they were stained a reddish brown color. She once again turned to Kit. "Kit?"

Kit, who was staring at the floor, jumped at the sound of her voice. 'Bahaha! Oh, whew,' he began to chuckle and put his left hand on his chest and took deep a couple deep breaths, 'Sheesh, surprised the feth outta me there Hermione. Whew… yes?'

Hermione was equally surprised by Kit's reaction, smiled and then asked, "Why'd you say it would be best if I didn't see whatever it is you did after you told Dunningham to take me over by Mara?"

Kit opened and closed his mouth several times as though to speak before he finally answered, 'Hermione, I have a dark side. Years back when it was given a name. I won't tell you its name because I never want you to see it. I'll give you a quick idea of what its like, but don't worry about it because I'll make sure to keep it in line around you. Okay?'

Hermione said nothing in response but shook her head yes.

Kit took a deep breath before speaking again, 'A soldier in war has to accept the fact that he's already dead in order to perform his job as a soldier perfectly. A soldier in war must act without mercy, or compassion towards the enemy. I am a soldier, with that responsibility I have already accepted that I am already dead for we are in a war, and I will do anything to achieve victory for us. In such having served in the U.S. Army I've fought in muggle wars, I have fought in the first war against Voldemort. I've seen the atrocities of both ways of war, but both do the same thing. So there for in both ways of war a soldier must always accept that he is already dead to perform his duty. My dark side is all of the things that a soldier must do in order to achieve victory, well… not in the usual sense. It's hard to explain, and I've never told anyone else this before. It takes all the things a soldier must do to achieve victory several steps too far, such as it almost enjoys the prospect of killing the enemy, and I'll be fethed if it doesn't scare the feth outta me every time it over takes me. Though as long as you're near by, it'll never come out. As far as I can tell you can control its comings and goings. 

I don't know if this'll make you feel any better, but the only reason why Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle are alive is because you don't approve of killin', at least not without being given another chance to prove themselves. You and Dekker are the only people in the world who know of this, I never told Dekker, but he found out for himself somehow,' Kit's voice started to shake and his eyes filled with tears, he quickly turned to face away from Hermione and took a stuttered breath.

Hermione sat looking at Kit in silence regretting that she had asked. "Kit, I didn't mean to--" 

Kit turned back to face Hermione, there were tears coming from his eyes, which he wiped away with his left hand, he took a deep breath and smiled. 'No, no it's okay. I've been carryin' that burden locked up inside for years, feels nice to talk about it,' Kit's brow furrowed as though he were struggling with something. Then he let out a quiet chuckle and said, 'My right arm, I don't think it has any blood left in it, I just tried to move it and it wouldn't respond.'

Hermione turned and looked at his hand, she wondered how long it had been in that same position, she reached over and picked it up then released it. Kit watched and when it dropped back onto her shoulder he let out a short laugh and then his head dropped onto Hermione's left shoulder and he continued laughing with tears of happiness streaming down his face. Hermione also began laughing her left hand reached behind Kit and patted his shoulder, her head dropped slowly on top of Kit's head tears of joy seeping out of her eyes. 

The two slowly feel asleep in each other's arms, and in doing so sealed a bond of friendship between them that shall outlast the many ages of this earth. A bond of friendship that very few people ever know, usually the only men who ever develop a bond such as this are men who have served with each other in combat.

After three hours of continuous flying, constantly changing direction to confuse any attempts that the three Slytherins might make to memorize a route to the base, the two Blackhawks touched down at the base, slightly harder that usual to wake up all the passengers in the back.

Jarred from sleep Kit and Hermione wiped sleep from their eyes and attempted to stand up. Their attempt to stand up failed and they both fell back onto the chair that they had been sharing. Kit laughed and with his free hand he pushed himself up out of the chair, his right arm dragging behind. 'Ohhh, note to self never let my arm stay in a position like that, that long again. Ever.'

Hermione looked up at Kit questioningly, "What?"

'Now that blood's getting back into my right arm there's nothin' but a dull ache, and it ain't fun,' Kit stabilized himself by putting his left hand on the ceiling of the helicopter, and offered Hermione his right hand to assist her ascent out of the chair. Taking Kit's outstretched hand she pulled herself up out of the chair. 

Kit jumped out of the Blackhawk and held out his hand to help Hermione out of the Blackhawk. Again taking Kit's outstretched hand Hermione hopped down onto the ground, and accompanied Kit over to the second Blackhawk. When they reached it they looked into the back where the three Slytherins lay on stretchers. Looking up from the bodies he turned to face the flagpole. The flagpole was the same, except for the Dumbledore's Army flag had a black backdrop instead of a red one. He turned back to look at the Slytherins and said, 'Y'all sure are lucky.'

Hermione asked, "What?"

Kit turned to face Hermione and answered, 'They're lucky mainly because, a, you're the reason their still alive. And, b, because the flag is black. When you came the first time it was red. A red backdrop means that there will be no quarter given to the enemy and no prisoners will be taken. A black backdrop means that quarter will be given, and prisoners will be taken. However due to the nature of these prisoners of war they will be returned to Hogwarts, and I most likely will be receiving a reprimand from Dumbledore about my actions here today,' turning away from Hermione he called out, 'Medic! Take these prisoners to the hospital and patch 'em up, I'll get Staff Sergeant Sajer to fix up the wounds as best as we can and modify their memory.'

'Hooah sir,' replied the medics who were running up to the Blackhawk. 

Leaving the medics to carry out their orders Kit moved up along side Hermione and said, 'Come on Hermione, let's go get you cleaned up. As soon as the prisoners are ready to be taken back to Hogwarts I'll notify you. Your tent awaits you Captain Granger,' with that Kit's posture stiffened and he gave a crisp salute to Hermione.

Hermione did her best to return the salute. "Erm—Thank you, erm--General Lightningstrider," replied Hermione nervously, not used to being addressed with such respect and formality.

Kit nodded and turned to a soldier who was standing behind him, 'Private, please escort Harry and Ron to my tent and I will be there presently.'

'Yes, sir,' replied the trooper.

'Sergeant Major, please escort Captain Granger to her tent, then report back to my tent,' ordered Kit.

'Roger that sir,' said Dekker to Kit. Turning to Hermione he said, 'Captain Granger, if you'll follow me please.'

Turning in different directions the three left each to fulfill some mission.


	9. O'Malley

Chapter Nine

'How we doin' doc?' Inquired Kit as he walked into the hospital.

'Well Kit, It brings me no pleasure to say this Kit, however, I will say it. They're going to be fine, their memories' have been modified already and we've got 'em so that they'll be asleep until they've been at Hogwarts for an hour,' replied Leon "Doc" Sajer as she wiped his hands with a pale green cloth.

'Feth Doc, if I hadn't known you for so long I wouldn't know you were French. You don't talk like one, seems like I've rubbed my Southern accent off on ya. And needless to say, you sure can fight must be a descendent of some of the French Resistance. And one thing's for sure you sure don't fit the stereotype of French women.'

'Well Kit, I try and make it so the French jokes stay to a minimum, preferably keep them from being made at all. And my father was American. And my mother is descendant from French Resistance members. Anything else you need, General?'

'Well actually Doc, would you mind runnin' on by Captain Granger's tent and checkin' on her? I don't know how she's takin' the events of today, so if you don't mind checkin' up on her before you go on patrol. Hooah?'

'Hooah, General. I'll check up on Captain Granger,' replied Sajer with a salute.

Returning the salute Kit turned and began to walk out, stopping before he got to the exit, he stopped turned his head slightly. 'Doc, get these three pathetic excuses for humans out of here, they do not belong in the same building as men wounded in combat,' he then walked out of the hospital.

'Roger that sir,' replied Leon, she then turned to a soldier standing nearby, 'Corporal, get those three and get 'em outta here. On the double!'

'Yes, ma'am,' replied the soldier.

Sitting in two chairs in front of a large oak desk Harry and Ron looked at each other nervously. The entrance to the tent burst open and three soldiers walked in. The first one was the one who was with Hermione on the trip here, where ever they were. The second one looked quite insane, he looked as though there was just barely enough skin to cover his skull, and his eyes were cold a merciless yellow. The third one had the same haircut as the other two, little on the top and none on the side, his eyes were deep blue, and what little hair he had was black. His skin was tanned and he was close to the same height as the second one. Each one was armed with a rifle. They walked behind the large oak desk, the one who had been with Hermione took a seat in a tall chair. 'Mister Potter, Mister Weasley…'

Hermione lay quietly on the bed inside the tent replaying the events of the day over and over in her mind. When it was all over and they had landed here her feelings on the matter were clear, but as she continued to watch the events over and over she became more and more confused. 

She remembered watching Draco, Crabbe and Goyle, as they were loaded onto the second Blackhawk. Crabbe and Goyle's only wounds were the shoulder wounds Draco however, his lips and chin were caked with dried blood and his eyes were fogged. She had no pity for Malfoy then, but as she replayed the scenes over and over she began to question whether or not he really deserved what he got. Dunningham, who was standing beside her, let out a sigh of relief when he saw Draco… 

Two soldiers with expressionless faces carried the final stretcher. Hermione's hair was flowing freely in the wind created by the rotating propellers of the Blackhawk. Lying unmoving on the stretcher was Draco. His hair was tangled, his face was deathly pale, and his forehead covered in sweat. His lips and chin were covered in dried blood. Standing behind her was Dunningham, who when Draco passed by let out a sigh of relief. 'He's one lucky fether, I'll give him that.'

Hermione turned away from the body on the stretcher to look up at Dunningham. "Why is that exactly?"

'Hermione, Kit is both my friend and my CO. I've known him long enough that a few minutes ago when he told me to go take you over to Mara and that you didn't want to stick around to see what was next, I knew what was coming next. Kit has almost a second personality; he wouldn't approve of me telling you too much about him though, especially its name. But I will say this, I'll be fethed if Kit didn't take a backseat in his body for a good two minutes before Dekker noticed and brought Kit back to the driver's seat. And that was just before he took his first shot, if Dekker hadn't stopped him Draco would be being carried off in a body bag with three bullets lodged firmly in his skull. And the only thing that's keeping about three-fourths of the Slytherins in Hogwarts alive is you, and our orders. And I won't be surprised if at the end of the year Umbridge finds herself six feet under. I've never seen Kit hate anyone so much as he despises her. 

Now one thing I have noticed is that when he gets around you he is somewhat different, not too much, but enough. He softens a little bit, but is twice as alert. I think the day that we all took the job of watching over all of y'all after your first year, he took a personal vow that anything that would harm you would die a slow, painful death. I know Kit, and that wasn't quite him makin' that vow. The first part of his vow was him, the second part was O'Mal-,' Dunningham caught himself mid sentence, 'his other side. I've never heard him promise something like that.

Needless to say, if it weren't for you Draco'd be dead. But I don't think Kit'll disobey his orders that no student will be killed. However, due to the fact that their memory will be modified to forget this, you'll still have to deal with them as usual. Here comes—' 

'Hermione?' Came a female voice from the entrance to the tent, jerking Hermione from an unknown sleep.

Hermione's eyes were still trying to focus when she turned to see who it was. Her eyes focused in on a woman standing half inside, half outside Hermione inquired, "Yes? Who are you?"

'I'm Corporal Leon "Doc" Sajer. Kit sent me here to check up on you before I went out on my patrol. Feelin' all right?'

Hermione shook her head and said, "No, not really."

'Mind if I come in?'

'No, please come, sit.'

Leon walked into the room; she was slightly taller than Hermione. She like everyone else at the base wore the standard woodland camouflage BDUs except her right arm had a white band with a Red Cross on it. Her face was tanned, with a scar above her eyebrows, and another one running along her jaw line on the right side of her face. Her hair could not be seen from underneath the helmet, her eyes were a brilliant sky blue. Leon pulled a chair from across the tent and pulled it up beside the bed and sat down. Hermione sat up in the bed and positioned herself so that she was looking directly at Leon. Leon removed her helmet revealing ear length blackish brown hair, she then placed the helmet on her knee and looked back up at Hermione and said, 'You look like you've got something on your mind Hermione, what is it?'

Hermione took a minute to collect her thoughts and then began, "Everyone that I've talked to always tells me about Kit's dark side, but no one really tells me what it is, or—"

'Hang on a sec there Hermione, let me tell you a few things about Kit. First off, I know he's going to be mad at me for telling you but I will anyway, his dark side's name is O'Malley, why it's named that I don't know. I've seen O'Malley a few times myself, more than I'd like to, and he scares everyone around him, even Dekker. But O'Malley doesn't scare anyone more than it does Kit. Kit is almost at a constant state of war with himself to keep O'Malley from taking over, and no O'Malley isn't an alternate personality or anything like that, but there are times when Kit allows him to take over for something. Now I'll be the first to celebrate should Kit ever manage to get rid of O'Malley, but I will also say there are times when he comes in fethin' useful.

You see a lot of times when you're in combat you don't think about the fact that when your bullet hits the enemy and kills them. You don't have the time to think about all the consequences of you killing that person, because at that point in time the only thing you care about is keeping your buddies alive, because you know that they're doing their best to keep you alive. So after a battle most people start feeling regrets, remorse, and feels horrible. Some just simply see it as something that had to be done for a cause. Then you have some folk who enjoy it; Kit falls in the second category. O'Malley falls in the last, but in certain times O'Malley can be very useful in longer sustained fire fights, because while O'Malley does the fighting it allows Kit to keep cool and think smart.

The time in which you really have to worry are after the battle like today. I can tell you exactly what happened when Kit had Dunningham take you over to talk to Mara. Kit's despised the Malfoys ever since the first war with Voldemort, and so all that pent up anger towards them has had no chance to be let out, and today was him blowing off a little steam, and lucky for Draco, Dekker just happened to see it. Now knowing Kit he wouldn't have killed Draco, mostly because of orders, but he would have brought him close to it. 

And I will say that my own personal experience with Kit didn't start of on the best of terms. You see when I went to tryout for a beaters position of the Spiders I was only one of three French people who attempted to tryout for it, Kit's loathing of the French preceded him so most were afraid. But Kit does have an undying respect for the members of the French Resistance during World War Two…'

__

Kit walked down the line of people who were attempting to tryout for one of the two vacant Beater's positions. He paused in front of each one of them in turn. Scanning each of them with his eyes and a look of utter hatred on his face. When Kit stopped in front of Leon he turned on his heel and saw the name Sajer on her Quidditch robes an evil expression formed on his face. He walked up to her and put his face barely five inches from the tip of Leon's nose. 'SAJER!'

The unexpected shock of someone yelling that loudly from barely five inches away caused Leon to jump at least two inches off the ground. Attempting to regain some form of composure she responded shakily, 'Yes?'

'SAJER, WHERE EXACTLY ARE YOU FROM?'

Leon had hoped that this question wouldn't come up, 'Argonne, France.'

With a look of extreme grim satisfaction on his face Kit tore into her, 'FRANCE, HUH? EXPLAIN TO ME YOU'RE REASONING HERE SAJER. HOW CAN YOU EVEN THINK OF COMING HERE TO TRY OUT FOR **MY **SOUTHERN **AMERICAN** QUIDDITCH TEAM, KNOWIN' FULL WELL THAT I ONLY TAKE THE BEST? AND AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED THE BEST DOES **NOT **INCLUDE PATHETIC FROGS WHO **LOSE** TO THEMSELVES IN A WAR, AND SURRENDER AT THE FIRST SIGN OF A GERMAN WITH A RIFLE! ARE YOU GOING TO SURRENDER NOW THAT YOU'RE TAKIN' A LITTLE FIRE HERE SAJER? I KNOW YOU WANT TO, RIGHT NOW A DEAD MAGGOT HAS A BETTER CHANCE OF MAKIN' THIS HERE TEAM THAN YOU AND ANY OTHER FETHIN' FROGS THAT HAVE EVEN CONSIDERED COMIN' OUT HERE,' somewhere down the line someone let out a small chuckle. Kit wheeled around faster than anyone she'd ever seen and marched over there. Feeling relieved at the break from Kit's roaring and horrible breath (Kit had heard that a few French were coming to try out) she turned her head slightly to try and see who it was. But that was proved unnecessary because grabbed who ever it was by the scruff of the neck and dragged him out in front of every one else and began again, 'EXACTLY WHAT DO YOU FIND SO FETHIN' FUNNY HERE, SANCHEZ?'

The person who was now being yelled replied, 'My name's not Sanchez, it's—'

He never got to finish that sentence because Kit had kicked him in the back of the knee and then continued, 'I DON'T GIVE A FLYIN' FETH WHAT YOU'RE NAME IS, BECAUSE I CAN GUARENTEE THAT NEITHER YOU OR SAJER ARE GONNA MAKE THIS TEAM. NOW GIVE ME THIRTY, ON THE DOUBLE! BOTH OF YA!'

Leon was still trying to figure out what "Give me thirty," meant when two pairs of hands grabbed her shoulders and she found herself being hauled up beside "Sanchez". She was then thrust unceremoniously face first to the ground.

'PUSH-UPS, YOU STUPID FETHERS NOT ONLY DOES THAT DEAD MAGGOT HAVE A BETTER CHANCE OF MAKIN' THIS HERE TEAM, BUT HE'S APPARENTLY A LOT MORE INTELLIGENT!' came Kit's roaring voice.

Leon hated push-ups, she moved quickly into the standard push-up position when something heavy collided on her back causing her arms to buckle under her. She had just began to turn to see what was resting on her back when a black boot collided with her side knocking what little breath she had in her lungs completely out. 'DAGBLAMMIT SAJER, I SAID THIRTY PUSH-UPS ON THE DOUBLE! LYING ON THE GROUND IS NOT AN OPTION, OR ARE YOU SURRENDERING? WELL FRENCHIE ARE YA?'

It was at that exact moment in time when Sajer knew that she was going to make this team if it was the last thing she ever did. With adrenaline coursing through her veins she lifted herself slowly off the ground and began the task of attempting to do thirty push-ups with a forty-pound bag lying on her back.

'OH, WE GOT US A LIVE ONE HERE FELLAS! TOO SLOW HERE SAJER, YOU SHOULD'VE BEEN ON TWENTY-TWO, AND YOU'RE ONLY ON FIFTEEN!' Once again the boot came crashing into her side sending her crashing to the ground, 'WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION SAJER? CAN YOU NOT EVEN HANDLE THIRTY PUSH-UPS? IF YOU CAN'T TAKE THIS HOW DO YOU EXPECT TO HANDLE A BLUDGER IN A MATCH? Oh, wait that's right YOU'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE THE TEAM SO IT DOESN'T MATTER!'

Feeling nothing but hate towards Kit, Leon rolled onto her stomach still gasping for air, and began doing push-ups again. 'Well, well, well. Sajer, you just might have a chance. AT WALKING OUT OF THIS TRY OUT WITH SOME DIGNITY. Wait; never mind the French have no dignity.'

Five minutes and ten-boot kicks later Leon finished the thirty push-ups. Seeing that Leon was done Kit grabbed the bag off her back and tossed them to the side then offered his hand to help her get back up. She looked up expecting to see some evil look, but instead was met with a softer expression. Taking the hand, Kit pulled her up off the ground and said, 'Get back in line, Frenchie.'

Smiling to herself she walked back to her spot in line (which was surprisingly smaller since Kit had threatened to do the same to them, causing a number of them to run away) and watched as "Sanchez" finished his push-ups. Expecting to see Kit give the same treatment to "Sanchez" as he had shown her, she was greatly surprised.

'SANCHEZ YOU MISERABLE FAILURE (a kick to the stomach), HOW CAN YOU LET A FRENCHIE BEAT YOU? GET UP AND GET YOUR GEAR AND GET THE FETH OUTTA MY SIGHT!' With that Kit picked up the bag off of "Sanchez's" back and then threw it back on to his back sending "Sanchez" crashing to the ground. Once again Kit retrieved the bag and threw it to the side, and kicked him again in the stomach, 'I SAID GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!'

"Sanchez" gasping for breath slowly began to crawl towards the locker rooms. But before he made it to far two figures grabbed him from behind and carried him to the locker rooms. Kit turned to face the remaining line, which now consisted of two people, Leon and someone else.

'YOU THERE! NEXT TO SAJER GET OVER HERE AND GIVE ME THIRTY!' But before Kit had even finished the guy standing beside her was already halfway across the pitch.

Kit pulled out a blue box and removed a stick of chewing gum, placed it in his mouth then walked up to Leon, 'Well Sajer, you appear to be the only one left. Congratulations you've made the team.'

'But, don't you want me to fly first?' Asked Leon, bewildered.

'Sajer, most people break under those circumstances like I just put you through. And once I saw you turn all the things I said around and use them for a reason to insure your position on this team, there's not one thing I could have you do that you wouldn't be able to finish. And that's what I was looking for out here today. And just so you know, I may not think too highly of the French, but not at the level of which I displayed here today. I hold the utmost respect for the members of the French Resistance during World War Two. Now go on and head into the locker rooms, Mara'll get you fitted into your Quidditch Robes. Congratulations once again.'

'Thank you,' replied Sajer smiling inwardly at herself.

Sajer took a breath after retelling the story of her Quidditch tryout and then said, 'If Kit's not in combat, or really has something to be angry at, his anger is just an act. He follows very close to the military principles of General Lee, General "Stonewall" Jackson, and General Patton. So don't worry about Kit, he knows where the line is drawn, and unless your life or one of ours' are at risk then he won't cross it. So don't you go worryin' about things like today. Kit'll always be there to help. Feelin' better now?'

Hermione nodded, "One thing though. You're French, but you don't sound French.'

Leon smiled, 'Well I'm not full blooded French, my mom was descended from French Resistance members, and my dad is an American. I have to head out now, but if you want I can have Mara stop by.'

Hermione nodded. "That'd be fine."

'Okay then, I'll talk to Mara then. Talk to ya later Hermione,' with those words Leon got up and walked out of the tent. Leaving Hermione to think over all the things that she had just learned about Kit.


	10. Round Trip

Chapter Ten

Looking down at his watch Kit said to Harry and Ron, 'Well, it seems that time has flown by and you best be gettin' on back to school before y'all have your Quidditch practice. Hermione will be back before y'all get done. Sergeant Major, escort these two back to the heli-pads and arrange for them to get the fastest possible means of getting back to Hogwarts.'

'Hermione, you'll be just fine. Don't think too much about what happened here today. Who knows it might be a blessing that this happened, that way when we come to the real deal you'll have already seen a little what combat looks like. However it's nothing compared to what actual combat looks, sounds, and feels like,' said Mara comfortingly.

Mara stood about half an inch shorter than Kit, and she had red-gold hair. Her eyes were a piercing ice blue, like almost everyone else at the base she had tanned skin. Mara smiled reassuringly at Hermione. Hermione feeling better stood up from the bed and embraced Mara in a hug. Mara not being used to being hugged tensed at, but quickly relaxed and patted Hermione on the back.

"Thanks Mara," whispered Hermione.

'You're welcome Hermione,' replied Mara.

At that moment the tent flap opened and Kit walked in, Kit did a double take then said, 'Woah.'

The air was filled with laughter for several minutes. When the laughter had subsided Kit pulled up a chair and said, 'Well Harry and Ron are on their way back to Hogwarts. Also since I'm supposed to see Dumbledore as soon as I get to Hogwarts, I think if I'm going to get a serious reprimand for today's action then I'm gonna make it worth it. We're gonna roll up in force to Hogwarts.'

"Kit don't, Umbridge might find out and report this to Fudge," argued Hermione to Kit who was trying very hard to suppress a smile.

'Don't worry about Umbridge we've already got that part under control along with anyone we don't want to remember that we were there,' assured Kit, 'Okay, I'll be back in fifteen minutes so be ready to roll then.'

Standing in a circle around a table Kit, Dunningham, Leon, Dekker, and several others were looking at an overhead photo of the Hogwarts Castle, detailing incursion and extraction routes. 'Okay, our convoy under my command will come around the Dark Forest and we'll roll up in force to the grounds. Convoy designate Sierra six-four. Once the convoy is around the Dark Forest our air element will lift off and secure a perimeter for the exterior. Once the perimeter is in place the troops on the ground will give a green light for the convoy to pull in, and once we've arrived we'll sweep through the Castle leaving a clear path up to the Gryffindor common room. Blackhawks' designation will be Tango Four-whatever. Littlebirds will be designated Star Two-whatever. Infantry chalks deployed from the helicopters will be designated Kilo One-whatever. Any questions? No. Okay lets get to it then.'

With that the group dispersed. Kit left to get Hermione and Mara.

Ten minutes later Kit, Dekker, Hermione, Leon and one other soldier were sitting inside a Humvee on a very bumpy ride around the Dark Forest. Kit was in the front passenger seat; Hermione was in the backseat directly behind him. To Hermione's left was Leon, Dekker was driving and the soldier she didn't know was manning the "fifty". Behind their Humvee was a column of Humvees all filled with as many soldiers as they could possibly fit. The drive to the edge of the Dark Forest took another twenty odd minutes. When they reached the edge Kit grabbed a mic and spoke into it, 'Sierra six-four passing staging area. Air unit, activate.'

'Roger that six-four, Tangos active.'

'Affirmative six-four Stars are online.'

Kit placed the mic back on the dashboard in front of him. Hogwarts loomed on the horizon growing steadily larger. Minutes passed and the sky was filled with helicopters dropping troops off. Suddenly the quiet interior of the Humvee became very busy.

'Tango four-eight chalk deployed.'

'Tango four-one deploying troops.'

'Tango four-two troops are on the deck.'

'Tango four-eight take up overhead pattern and provide sniper cover.'

'Roger that.

'Tango four-three troops deployed beginning orbit of the target area.'

'Kilo one-one perimeter secure.'

'Kilo one-five all clear awaiting convoy.'

'Star two-six orbiting target building.'

'Star two-one troops deployed.'

All of the constant radio chatter became very confusing to Hermione. She had no idea what most of the terms meant especially the call signs. Kit picked the mic up again and said this time, 'Let's make this a little more interesting here fellas. Open fire, shatter some glass and some stone, but don't hit anyone.'

Hermione felt as though her eardrums were going to explode. The soldier manning the fifty opened fire, along with every other Humvee in their convoy. When they finally reached the castle the combined noise of the helicopters orbiting overhead, the machine guns on the Humvees and the occasional burst of rifle fire was deafening. Jumping out of the Humvee Hermione walked up to the front where Kit was talking to another soldier.

'Let's get in there and clear a way through to the common room, after that y'all can egress back to base and I'll return on a Littlebird.' 

'Hooah!'

Hermione was sure what to think, in some ways it was comical that this much was being used just to get her back to the common room safe, yet other ways it was just awesome. Though Hermione was still scared even though she knew that no one was firing back at them. Kit turned to Hermione, 'Hermione they're going to go in first and clear a path all the way up to the common room and once they've given the green light we'll take you up there okay?'

'Yeah, one thing though,' yelled Hermione over the constant gunfire.

'Yes?'

'What does "hooah" mean?'

Kit laughed and said, 'Pretty much anything except no.'

They had to wait thirty minutes before Kit's radio started speaking, 'Sierra six-four clear, ready for Captain Granger.'

'Roger that we're on our way.'

Hermione felt awkward walking normal. In front of her were Kit and Dekker who were slightly crouched and had their rifles shouldered looking with their rifles first. Behind her Leon and Dunningham were walking backward looking down the barrels of their rifles also slightly crouched. She looked at the people who had been unlucky enough to be in the way of the soldiers. They were lying on the ground with a boot in their back and a gun pointed at their head. Every now and then she would see someone she recognized such as Neville, Cho was on the ground tears streaming from her eyes. Unsurprisingly as they got closer to the common room more and more of the people lying on the ground were from Gryffindor. When they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady Kit stood up and turned to Hermione. 'Be seein' ya 'round Captain Granger,' Kit snapped to attention and saluted.

Not sure what to say Hermione returned the salute and turned to the portrait of the Fat Lady and said, '_Mimbulus mimbletonia.'_

The portrait swung open and Hermione walked through the hole into the common room. Kit waited until the portrait had closed before he signaled for the troops to return to base. From there he walked to Dumbledore's office. 'Fizzing Whizbee,' said Kit when he reached the stone gargoyles. 

Walking up the steps into the Headmaster's office Kit braced himself for an angry Dumbledore. Opening the door to the office Kit took a seat in front of the desk. Dumbledore sat behind the desk looking over his fingertips at Kit. In an attempt to lighten the mood Kit asked, 'Before you begin Dumbledore I would like to find out one thing.'

'Yes?'

'I know that you're going to give me not only a reprimand for the earlier action taken today dealing with Malfoy, and one for the ridiculously-awesome return trip. But I'd just like to know is there going to be a stern finger shaking at all during the reprimands?'

Dumbledore let out a small chuckle and then spoke, "No Kit, I do not believe that there will be any "stern finger shakings" taking place. However, I must ask you. What was the provocation for this mornings action?"

Kit took a deep breath and then began telling the story of what happened, which then lead into the return trip. At the end of the tale Dumbledore sat quietly for a few minutes then said, "Kit, I understand that you are doing the job I asked you to do. But I must ask you to not do these massive assaults for things like this again, unless of course it is necessary is that understood?"

'Completely.'

"Very well then, off you go."

Kit stood up grabbed his rifle and walked out of the office. When he reached the school grounds he looked over by Hagrid's cabin, seeing that it was still vacant he sighed and then spoke into his radio, 'Star Two-six, Sierra Six-four requesting evac over.'

'Roger that Six-four. Two-six inbound.'

Shortly after that a Littlebird landed in front of Kit who boarded, taking one last look at Hogwarts he sighed as the Littlebird turned and flew back to base.


	11. It Begins

Chapter Eleven

Hermione sat quietly by the fire in the common room in her favorite chair by the fireplace. Harry and Ron were off at Quidditch Practice, and everyone else was outside enjoying the clear weather. Hermione was at a loss, she had been taken and brought back to Hogwarts three times in very obvious fashions and yet each time only Fred, George, Neville, Ginny, herself, Harry and Ron seemed to remember anything.

Hermione was startled from her thoughts when a muffled voice came from her bag. Eyeing her bag suspiciously she slowly edged her hand towards the latch. Opening it she heard her name called from somewhere inside of it. 'Hermione, I'm behind… um… hang on… Buh… _five edarg, slleps fo yroeht lacigam evisnefed._ I'm not sure what kind of books you read for class but my goodness books that have their words backwards? Oh, wait the mirror's upside down.'

Not quite sure which book who ever it was in the "mirror" was talking about she began to look behind every book. Until she found a large piece of glass. Pulling it out she let out a startled cry. "Kit! How? What?"

'Two-way mirror. Anyway, I just came to tell you that we've been ordered to cease these "massive assaults" that involve picking you up and returning you to Hogwarts. So we're pretty much going to have to rely on you for our information and other… such… things… Or something like that… No not really.

But we will still be around just under disillusionment charms on all our stuff. So don't worry, I'm having Dobby deliver something to you tomorrow or tonight that'll help when you're at a Quidditch match or in Hogsmeade,' replied Kit.

Somewhat puzzled Hermione inquired, "Okay. One question though. How is it that every time I'm picked up or brought back no one remembers except Fred, George, Neville, Ginny, Harry, Ron, and me?"

'A lot of memory charms that are applied in a very sneaky-Dumbledore eqsue fashion. But I gotta head out now. I'll see you later.'

Before Hermione had a chance to say bye Kit's face disappeared from the mirror leaving her with just her reflection. Placing the mirror back into her bag Hermione let out a deep breath. Resting her head in her hands she closed her eyes and fell into an unintentional sleep.

__

Hermione was standing on a roadside, to her left was an old tree stump. The sun shining directly behind the tree stump into Hermione's eyes making it almost impossible to see the figure upon the tree stump. Small child like figures walk past occasionally glancing towards the figure on the tree stump then dismissing it and continuing on their way. The air began to shimmer and Hermione found herself standing a top of a mountain that seemed strangely familiar.

Smoke rises from the base of the mountain and helicopters circle like vultures around the smoke. Suddenly Hermione found herself standing in the middle of the smoke. Oddly colored blurry figures move around occasionally bursts of blinding light appear slightly in front of the figures.

Looking up towards the sky she saw a forest and from the trees out shot Harry riding on a skeletal looking horse alone. The horse disappeared from sight and Hermione looked back down towards the ground, and screamed.

To her left sat Harry and Fred both looking exhausted and both had tears streaming down their faces. Ron lay on his back in the snow his face pale and the snow around him was stained red. Beside Ron lay Ginny, George, and Neville each pale, and lying on the ground some had cuts and gashes visible, all were laying on their backs. But as unnerving as the images of them lying there in blood stained snow, nothing could prepare Hermione for what came next.

A few feet away from the others lay were several of the oddly colored figures all crouching around something. Moving closer she saw what it was they were crouching around. In the middle lay a figure, unrecognizable by the face, due to what she assumed to be medical bandages all soaked in blood, she began to try and find something distinguishing about it. Before she could finish one of the figures crouching around the body pulled the bandages off revealing what used to be someone's face. Through the blood Hermione detected small bits of skull that stuck out from the blood. Feeling nauseous she quickly looked past the face, but what she saw only made it worse. Attached to the body was a massive amount of bushy brown hair.

Falling to her knees Hermione's stomach began to repel the food she had eaten earlier. The images all around Hermione began to swirl, but she had time to see a line of masked figures sitting on their knees behind them were more of the oddly colored figures. The blinding flashes of light burst through the image and the masked figures keeled over onto the ground. Suddenly everything grew cold and Hermione looked up to see Kit standing over her. Except Kit was different his eyes held a fury behind them and an insane smile upon his face. His skin looked like it belonged to someone dead and his voice was like ice. Before everything went black Hermione heard a distant voice filled with terror. 'He has been overtaken.'

Hermione felt cold, exhausted, drenched in ice cold sweat. Looking around she saw Harry, Ron and the rest of Gryffindor standing over her looking fearful. Wondering where she was or why these people were looking at her she suddenly remembered the images from the dream. Ron, Ginny, Neville, George, herself all lying in blood on the ground, the image of Kit. Hermione suddenly rolled over onto her side just as the first of many waves of vomit flowed out of her mouth.

"Quick, someone go get help!" Cried Ron and the sound of multiple footfalls echoed through her pounding skull.

In a feeble attempt to help Hermione, Harry tried to form words of comfort but none came. Harry couldn't do anything except watch as Hermione laid there twitching and vomiting. The portrait hole to the Gryffindor common room burst open. First through the hole was Madam Pomfrey, followed by Professor McGonagall, then Dumbledore.

Dumbledore quickly surveyed the scene looked at Harry and asked his voice filled with concern, "What happened?"

Harry looked up at Dumbledore shaking his head, "I don't know."

Dumbledore nodded then conjured up a stretcher. By this time Hermione had lost consciousness and was lying still. With the aid of Professor McGonagall, Madam Pomfrey lifted Hermione onto the stretcher and Madam Pomfrey walked behind the stretcher as it floated out of the common room towards the Hospital Wing. Dumbledore quickly cleaned up the large puddle of vomit that was on the ground, and made the room smell like citrus then after a quick glance at Harry and Ron he turned and followed Madam Pomfrey. Professor McGonagall walked up to Ron and Harry and said, "Mister Potter, Mister Weasley if you two will follow me please."

Harry and Ron followed Professor McGonagall out of the common room. Harry had been deep in thought when he suddenly realized that they had stopped walking and were standing inside the Headmaster's Office.

"You two stay here, Professor Dumbledore will be in here shortly," said Professor McGonagall before she turned and left.

Sitting down Harry looked over at Ron. Ron was visibly shaken; his face was almost completely drained of blood. He was shaking and his eyes had begun to water. Harry reached out and grabbed Ron's shoulder, but said nothing. Ron closed his eyes and nodded to Harry's unspoken statement.

Meanwhile in the Hospital Wing Madam Pomfrey had set up curtains, to prevent curious on-lookers to see what was going on, around the bed that Hermione was laying on. Standing beside the bed Professor Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey were talking in hushed voices. "Miss Granger is in excellent condition, not sick in anyway except for the obvious. But what could have caused this?" Inquired Madam Pomfrey.

Dumbledore pursed his lips in thought then spoke. "I think it best if we waited until Miss Granger is fully rested."

'Six-one, Six-one this is Victor Five-six!'

Grumbling Kit reached over and grabbed the CB Walkie-Talkie off the stand next to his bed.

'Vic-Vic-Viiiiictor Five-Six, this is Six-one,' said Kit as he attempted to stifle a yawn, 'Go ahead Five-six.'

'Hotel Eight-seven is down. Repeat Eight-seven is down. Eight-seven was last reported at Hotel Whiskey.'

'Affirmative Five-six, hold position Dog Six will be there yesterday.'

'Roger that Six-one. Five-six holding position.'

'Six-one out,' said Kit as he switched frequency, 'Attention, this is Six-one. Dog Six move to reinforce Victor Five-six. Easy Six meet me in my tent. All other units consider yourselves on Alert-Five.'

"Is Hermione okay?" Asked Harry as Dumbledore walked into the Headmaster's office.

"Miss Granger is fine, she is resting now," replied Dumbledore sitting down.

"What happened, do you know?" Asked Ron.

"As of now we have no idea. Perhaps we shall find out tomorrow morning when she awakes. Madam Pomfrey has been instructed that you two may stay in the Hospital Wing tonight, that is of course if you two wish."

'Victor Five-Six, this is Easy Six what's your twenty, over?'

'Easy Six, twenty is outside of Hotel Whiskey India, over.'

'Affirmative Five-Six hold position we're touching down now and will be there shortly, over.'

'Roger that Easy Six. Five-six out.'

Conjuring up two chairs Dumbledore turned and looked directly at Ron and Harry and said, "Now, should Miss Granger awake do not ask any questions about what caused this. Understood?"

"Yes Professor," came Harry and Ron's response.

"Very well then," said Dumbledore as he turned and walked out of the Hospital Wing.

Looking at each other and then turning to look at Hermione's sleeping form Harry and Ron sat down in the armchairs that Dumbledore had conjured up beside Hermione's bed.

Kit, Mara, Leon, Dekker and Dunningham walked up to the spot where Five-Six was standing. The soldier snapped to attention when he saw them approach.

'What happened here corporal?' Asked Kit.

'Don't know sir, came back from my patrol and I found them like this,' replied the soldier pointing to the two bodies leaning up against the trees.

'Doc, check 'em out,' ordered Kit.

'Yes sir.'

Walking along with Leon, Kit saw that each of the soldiers appeared healthy and nothing wrong with them. Except for the fact that their eyes were wide open and their eyes gazed out at nothing.

'I think you know as well as I do boss,' sighed Leon.

'Yep,' replied Kit shaking his head slightly, 'Looks like we'll be increasing patrols and stepping up security. We can now officially go on a full war footing. I'll set up a briefing some time soon for a review once we've got everything planned.'

'Roger that sir,' replied everyone around Kit.

'Okay, well get these men bagged and have 'em shipped back home. In the meantime I have to inform Dumbledore and get on the horn with command on getting some extra equipment. Looks like our good friend Voldemort now knows that we're back in action,' said Kit as he turned and walked towards the waiting Humvee column.


	12. Percy and Padfoot

Chapter Twelve

"Ron. Ron wake up," urged Harry to Ron, who was snoring.

Hermione, who was now sitting up at the edge of the bed sighed and shook her head in amazement. Despite Harry's effort Ron wasn't waking up, finally Harry just gave up. He turned to face Hermione after giving Ron one last fleeting look. Rolling her eyes she grabbed her wand from the table beside her bed and doused Ron's face in water.

"What? What'd I miss?" Asked a bewildered Ron, whose face was now dripping water.

"Hermione's awake," said Harry indicating with his right arm.

"That's great. Hey, why is my face wet?" Inquired Ron who just now noticed that he was wet.

"You were asleep so Hermione sprayed you with water to get you up," replied Harry hiding a grin.

"You know there are other ways to wake someone up besides spraying them in water," said Ron annoyed.

"Trust me mate, I tried them first," countered Harry before turning to Hermione, "Are you okay? What happened up there in the common room?"

Hermione tilted her head to the side as she tried to remember what had happened before she awoke in the Hospital Wing. She could remember sitting in her favorite chair near the fire with Crookshanks in her lap. The next thing she could remember was that apparently at some point between her going from the chair to the Hospital Wing she had had some kind of dream, but couldn't remember anything about it. After a few minutes she finally spoke, "This may seem odd, but I can't recall anything in between now and back in the common room."

Looking mystified Harry looked down at the foot of the bed and then back to Hermione and then said, "Madam Pomfrey told us that if you woke up we were to tell you that she said to drink the potion next to your wand and then go back to sleep."

Reaching over Hermione grabbed the small glass of liquid she quickly drank it, put it back on the table and laid back down. She barely had time to say "Good night" before she fell into a dreamless sleep.

Awaking the next morning she found that Harry and Ron were gone and instead Professor Dumbledore was sitting in one of the chairs at the edge of the bed. Detecting movement Dumbledore's eyes flicked over the top of his glasses to focus on Hermione. "Good morning, Miss Granger."

"Professor Dumbledore."

"Mister Potter and Mister Weasley left when I first arrived to begin work on their homework. They told me what you told them last night so there is no need to ask any more questions than this one. Can you remember anything else now?"

Hermione shook her head no and then sat up in the bed.

"Very well then. Madam Pomfrey has agreed to allow you to leave the Hospital Wing if you are feeling up to it. And with that I am afraid I must depart for I have things of which must be taken care of. Good day Miss Granger," said Dumbledore as he stood up.

'Dumbledore, last night two of my men were discovered dead last night. As far as we can tell they were killed by Death Eaters.'

"What are you trying to tell me Kit?"

'I'm just informing you that we are now officially at war with the Death Eaters.'

"What are the procedures of which you take under these circumstances?"

'Usually we would retaliate by attacking the nation who attacked us, and burning every city to the ground and killing every citizen of that nation, but we have no idea what nation is harboring Voldemort so we can't. Since we can't neutralize the threat in that means we'll be taking all of the defense precautions possible. We've requisitioned additional forces but they won't arrive for another month at least. So until they arrive we'll have to make due with what little we have here.

'We've put silencing charms on all our birds so no one'll hear 'em comin' and since we'll be orbiting the school, Hogsmeade, and where ever Captain Granger goes we'll put disillusionment charms on 'em too. Along with the soldiers on those patrols. Inside the school should be okay so I don't think we'll do anything with that. And all of these measures are all ready in effect so there's no stopping it.'

Dumbledore closed his eyes and nodded letting out a sigh.

Hermione spent most of her day explaining to practically everyone that she didn't know what happened, and that she was fine. She found the peace and quite of the nearly empty common room wonderful. Harry and Ron were doing their homework and even Fred and George were being quiet.

As she sat in her chair she noticed a faint tapping at the windows. Looking over she saw that it was Hermes, Percy's owl. Getting up she walked over to where Ron and Harry were doing their homework. After a short tense exchange of words she finally convinced Ron to look out the window which Hermes was sitting outside of. Ron got up and opened the window. Hermes flew inside, landed on Ron's essay, and held out a leg of which a letter was attached. Once Ron had removed the letter from Hermes's leg Hermes flew off, leaving inky bird prints on Ron's drawing of the moon Io.

Sinking back into his chair, staring at the words on the outside of the scroll he looked up at the others and said, "What d'you reckon?"

Hermione eagerly replied, "Open it!"

Ron quickly unrolled the scroll and began to read. The farther down the parchment his eyes traveled, the more pronounced became his scowl, and by the time he finished he looked disgusted. He then thrust the letter at Harry and Hermione, who leaned together to read it:

__

Dear Ron,

I have only just heard (from no less a person than the Minister of Magic himself, who has it from your new teacher, Professor Umbridge) that you have become a Hogwarts prefect.

I was most pleasantly surprised when I heard this news and must firstly offer my congratulations. I must admit that I have always been afraid that you would take what we might call the "Fred and George" route, rather than following in my footsteps, so you can imagine my feelings on hearing you have stopped flouting authority and have decided to shoulder some real responsibility.

But I want to give you more than congratulations, Ron, I want to give you some advice, which is why I am sending this at night rather than by the usual morning post. Hopefully you will be able to read this away from prying eyes and avoid awkward questions.

From something the Minister let slip when telling me you are now a prefect, I gather that you are still seeing a lot of Harry Potter. I must tell you, Ron, that nothing could put you in danger of losing your badge more than continued fraternization with that boy. Yes, I am sure you are surprised to hear this — no doubt you will say that Potter has always been Dumbledore's favorite – but I feel bound to tell you that Dumbledore may not be in charge at Hogwarts much longer and the people who count have a very different – and probably more accurate – view of Potter's behavior. I shall say no more here, but if you look at the Daily Prophet_ tomorrow you will get a good idea of the way the wind is blowing – and see if you can't spot yours truly!_

Seriously, Ron, you do not want to be tarred with the same brush as Potter, it could be very damaging to your future prospects, and I am talking here about life after school too. As you must be aware, given that our father escorted him to court, Potter had disciplinary hearing this summer in front of the whole Wizengamot and he did not come out of it looking too good. He got off on a mere technicality if you ask me and many of the people I've spoken to remain convinced of his guilt.

It may be that you are afraid to sever ties with Potter – I know that he can be unbalanced and for all I know, violent – but if you have any worries about this, or have spotted anything else in Potter's behavior that is troubling you, I urge you to speak to Dolores Umbridge, a really delightful woman, who I know will be only too happy to advise you.

This leads me to my other bit of advice. As I have hinted above, Dumbledore's regime at Hogwarts may soon be over. Your loyalty, Ron, should be not to him, but to the school and the Ministry. I am very sorry to hear that so far Professor Umbridge is encountering very little cooperation from staff as she strives to make those necessary changes within Hogwarts that the Ministry so ardently desires (although she should find this easier from next week – again see the Prophet _tomorrow!). I shall say only this a student who shows himself willing to help Professor Umbridge now may very well placed for Head Boyship in a couple of years!_

I am sorry that I was unable to see more of you over the summer. It pains me to criticize our parents, but I am afraid I can no longer live under their roof while they remain mixed up with the dangerous crowd around Dumbledore (if you are writing to Mother at any point, you might tell her that a certain Sturgis Podmore, who is a great friend of Dumbledore's, has recently been sent to Azkaban for trespass at the Ministry. Perhaps that will open their eyes to the kind of petty criminals with whom they are currently rubbing shoulders). I county myself very lucky to have escaped the stigma of association with such people – the Minister really could not be more gracious to me – and I do hope, Ron, that you will not allow family ties to blind you to the misguided nature of our parents' beliefs and actions either. I sincerely hope that, in time, they will realize how mistaken they were and I shall, of course, be ready to accept a full apology when that day comes.

Please think over what I have said most carefully, particularly the bit about Harry Potter, and congratulations again on becoming prefect.

Your brother,

Percy

Hermione looked down towards the ground. Meanwhile Harry attempted to make light of an awkward situation that the letter had brought on.

"Give it back," said Ron, holding out his hand. "He is –" Ron said jerkily, tearing Percy's letter in half, "the world's" – he tore it into quarters – "biggest" – he tore it into eighths – "_git._" He threw the pieces into the fire.

Hermione watched the pieces turn black and curl in the flames for a few seconds before being brought back to the present by Ron saying to Harry, "Come on, we've got to get this finished some time before dawn."

Hermione turned abruptly and said, "Oh, give them here."

"What?" said Ron.

"Give them to me, I'll look through them and correct them," she said.

"Are you serious? Ah, Hermione, you're a lifesaver," said Ron, "what can I -- ?"

"What you can say is, 'We promise we'll never leave our homework this late again,'" Hermione said, holding out both hands for their essays, looking slightly amused all the same.

"Thanks a million, Hermione," said Harry weakly, passing over his essay and sinking back into his armchair, rubbing his eyes.

It was now past midnight and the common room was deserted but for the three of them and Crookshanks. The only sound of Hermione's quill as she corrected the two essays.

Finishing the two essays she stood up and walked over to where Harry and Ron were sitting. Walking over to Ron first she said, "Okay, write that down," she said pushing his essay and a sheet covered in her own writing back to Ron, "and then copy out his conclusion that I've written for you."

"Hermione, you are honestly the most wonderful person I've ever met," said Ron weakly, "and if I'm ever rude to you again –"

"— I'll know you're back to normal," she said. "Harry yours is okay except for this bit at the end, I think you must have misheard Professor Sinistra, Europa's covered in _ice_, not mice – Harry?"

Harry was now crouched down on the singed and threadbare hearthrug, staring at something in the fire.

"Er – Harry?" said Ron uncertainly. "Why are you down there?"

"Because I've just seen Sirius's head in the fire," replied Harry.

"Sirius's head?" Repeated Hermione. "You mean like when he wanted to talk to you during the Triwizard Tournament? But he wouldn't do that now, it would be too — _Sirius_!"

She gasped, gazing at the fire, and Ron dropped his quill. Sitting there in the middle of the dancing flames was Sirius's head, long dark hair falling around his grinning face.

"I was starting to think you'd go to bed before everyone else had disappeared," he said. "I've been checking every hour."

"You've been popping into the fire every hour?" said Harry, half-laughing.

"Just for a few seconds to check if the coast was clear yet."

"But what if you'd been seen?" Hermione said anxiously.

"Well, I think a girl – first year by the look of her — might've got a glimpse of me earlier, but don't worry," Sirius said hastily, as Hermione called a hand to her mouth. "I was gone the moment she looked back at me and I'll be she just thought I was an oddly shaped log or something."

"But Sirius, this is taking an awful risk —" Began Hermione.

"You sound like Molly," said Sirius. "This was the only way I could come up with of answering Harry's letter without resorting to a code — and codes are breakable."

At the mention of Harry's letter, both Hermione and Ron turned to stare at him.

Hermione was the first to speak, "You didn't say you'd written to Sirius."

"I forgot," said Harry and upon seeing Hermione's expression. "Don't look at me like that, Hermione, there was not way anyone would have got secret information out of it, was there, Sirius?"

"No, it was very good," said Sirius, smiling. "Anyway, we'd better be quick, just in case we're disturbed — your scar."

"What about -- ?" Ron began, but Hermione said quickly, "We'll tell you afterward, go on, Sirius."

"Well, I know it can't be fun when it hurts, but we don't think it's anything to really worry about. It kept aching all last year, didn't it?"

"Yeah, and Dumbledore said it happened whenever Voldemort was feeling a powerful emotion," said Harry. "So maybe he was just, I dunno, really angry or something the night I had detention."

"Well, now he's back it's bound to hurt more often," said Sirius.

"So you don't think it had anything to do with Umbridge touching me when I was in detention with her?" Harry asked.

"I doubt it," said Sirius. "I know her by reputation and I'm sure she's no Death Eater —"

"She's foul enough to be one," said Harry darkly and Ron and Hermione nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Yes, but the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters," said Sirius with a wry smile. "I know she's a nasty piece of work, though — you should hear Remus talk about her."

"Does Lupin know her? Asked Harry.

"No," said Sirius, "But she drafted a bit of anti-werewolf legislation two years ago that makes it almost impossible for him to get a job."

"What's she got against werewolves?" Hermione said angrily.

"Scared of them, I expect," said Sirius, smiling at her indignation. "Apparently she loathes part-humans; she campaigned to have merpeople rounded up and tagged last year too. Image wasting you time and energy persecuting merpeople when there are little toe rags like Kreacher on the loose —"

Ron laughed but Hermione looked upset.

"Sirius!" Hermione said reproachfully. "Honestly, if you made a bit of an effort with Kreacher I'm sure he'd respond, after all, you are the only member of his family he's got left, and Professor Dumbledore said —"

"So what are Umbridge's lessons like?" Sirius interrupted. "Is she training you to you all to kill half-breeds?"

"No, said Harry. "She's not letting us use magic at all!"

"Ah, well that figures," said Sirius. "Our information from inside the Ministry is that Fudge doesn't want you trained in combat."

"_Trained in combat?_" repeated Harry incredulously. "What does he think we're doing here, forming some sort of wizard army?"

"That's exactly what he thinks you're doing," said Sirius, "or rather that's what he's afraid Dumbledore's doing—forming his own private army, with which he will be able to take on the Ministry of Magic."

Hermione let out a small laugh, then Ron said, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, including all the stuff that Luna Lovegood comes out with."

Hermione was furious at this thought, "So we're being prevented from learning Defense Against the Dark Arts because Fudge is scared we'll use spells against the Ministry?"

"Yep," said Sirius. "Fudge thinks Dumbledore will stop at nothing to seize power. He's getting more paranoid about Dumbledore by the day. It's a matter of time before he as Dumbledore arrested on some trumped-up charge.

"Oh, and Hermione just so you are aware. Dumbledore was informed by Kit earlier today that he had found two of his men dead, killed by Death Eaters," Hermione gasped, "and from what he told Dumbledore he'd love to deploy the entire Army, lucky for Europe that most of it's back in the States, and burn Albania to the ground and turn it into a ghost country on the slightest hint that Voldemort is there. But anyway, Kit told Dumbledore that they are now on a war footing, and helicopters will be orbiting Hogwarts, Hogsmeade making sure it's safe for you. And I don't know how much restraint Kit can put up against himself if he has the chance to take down Draco, or anyone that even looks at you the wrong way. So be very cautious and as much as we'd all like to see Draco put in his place, let's try not to make that place six feet under. Or anyone for that matter."

Hermione wasn't sure what to say so she just nodded.

A few moments of silence ensued before Harry broke the silence with a question, "D'you know if there's going to be anything about Dumbledore in the _Daily Prophet_ tomorrow? Only Ron's brother Percy reckons there will be —"

"I don't know," said Sirius, "I haven't seen anyone from the Order all weekend, they're all busy. It's just been Kreacher and me here…."

There was a definite not of bitterness in Sirius's voice.

"So you haven't heard any news about Hagrid, either?"

"Ah…" said Sirius, "well, he was supposed to be back by now, no one's sure what's happened to him." Then upon seeing their stricken faces, he added quickly, "But Dumbledore's not worried, so don't you three get yourselves in a state; I'm sure Hagrid's fine."

"But if he was supposed to be back by now…" Hermione said in a small, worried voice.

"Madame Maxime was with him, we've been in touch with her and she says they got separated on the journey home — but there's nothing to suggest he's hurt or — well, nothing to suggest he's not perfectly okay."

Unconvinced, Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchanged worried looks.

"Listen, don't go asking too many questions about Hagrid," said Sirius hastily, "it'll just draw even more attention to the fact that he's not back, and I know Dumbledore doesn't want that. Hagrid's tough, he'll be okay." And when they did not appear cheered by this Sirius added, "When's your next Hogsmeade weekend anyway? I was thinking, we got away with the dog disguise at the station, didn't we? I though I could —"

"NO!" said Harry and Hermione together, very loudly.

"Sirius, didn't you see the _Daily Prophet_?" said Hermione anxiously.

"Oh that," said Sirius grinning, "they're always guessing where I am, they haven't really got a clue —"

"Yeah, but we think this time they have," said Harry. "Something Malfoy said on the train made us think he knew it was you, and his father was on the platform, Sirius — you know, Lucius Malfoy — so don't come up here, whatever you do, if Malfoy recognized you again —"

"All right, all right, I've got the point, said Sirius. He looked most displeased. "Just an idea, thought you might like to get together —"

"I would, I just don't want you chucked back in Azkaban!" said Harry.

There was a pause in which Sirius looked out of the fire at Harry, a crease between his sunken eyes.

"You're less like your father than I thought," he said finally, a definite coolness in his voice. "The risk would've been what made if fun for James."

"Look —"

"Well, I'd better get going, I can hear Kreacher coming down the stairs," said Sirius. "I'll write to tell you a time I can make it back into the fire, then, shall I? If you can stand to risk it?"

There was a tiny _pop_, and the place where Sirius's head had been was flickering flame once more.


	13. The Hogwarts High Inquisitor

Chapter Thirteen

The next morning at breakfast Hermione was going over in her head what kind of titles to look for in search of the article Percy had mentioned the night before in his letter. This proved to be completely pointless when the owl delivered the _Daily Prophet_. It had barely cleared the top of the milk jug when she let out a gasp and immediately flattened the newspaper. Revealing to all the large photograph of Dolores Umbridge, who was smiling widely and blinking slowly at them from just underneath the headline:

MINISTRY SEEKS EDUCATIONAL REFORM

DOLORES UMBRIDGE APPOINTED FIRST-EVER "HIGH INQUISITOR"

"'High Inquisitor'?" said Harry darkly, his half-eaten bit of toast slipping from his fingers. "What does _that_ mean?"

Hermione began to read the article aloud:

__

"In a surprise move last night the Ministry of Magic passed new legislation giving itself an unprecedented level of control at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"'The Minister has been growing uneasy about the goings-on at Hogwarts for some time,' said Junior Assistant to the Minister, Percy Weasley. 'He is now responding to concerns voiced by anxious parents, who feel the school may be moving in a direction they do not approve.'

"This is not the first time in recent weeks Fudge has used new laws to effect improvements at the Wizarding school. As recently as August 30th Educational Decree Twenty-two was passed, to ensure that, in the event of the current headmaster being unable to provide a candidate for a teaching post, the Ministry should select and appropriate person.

_"'That's how Dolores Umbridge came to be appointed to the teaching staff at Hogwarts,' said Weasley last night. 'Dumbledore couldn't find anyone, so the Minister put in Umbridge and of course, she's been an immediate success —"_

"She's been a WHAT?" said Harry loudly.

"Wait, there's more," said Hermione grimly.

__

" '—an immediate success, totally revolutionizing the teaching of Defense Against the Dark Arts and providing the Minister with on-the-ground feedback about what's really happening at Hogwarts.'

"It is this last function that the Ministry has now formalized with the passing of Educational Decree Twenty-three, which creates the new position of 'Hogwarts High Inquisitor.'

" 'This is an exciting new phase in the Minister's plan to get to grips with what some are calling the "falling standards" at Hogwarts,' said Weasley. 'The Inquisitor will have powers to inspect her fellow educators and make sure that they are coming up to scratch. Professor Umbridge has been offered this position in addition to her own teaching post, and we are delighted to say that she has accepted.'

"This Ministry new moves have received enthusiastic support from parents of students at Hogwarts.

" 'I feel much easier in my mind now that I know that Dumbledore is being subjected to fair and objective evaluation,' said Mr. Lucius Malfoy, 41, speaking from his Wiltshire mansion last night. 'Many of us with our children's best interests at heart have been concerned about some of Dumbledore's eccentric decisions in the last few years and will be glad to know that the Ministry is keeping an eye on the situation.'

"Among those 'eccentric decisions' are undoubtedly the controversial staff appointments previously described in this newspaper, which have included the hiring of werewolf Remus Lupin, half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, and delusional ex-Auror 'Mad-Eye' Moody.

"Rumors abound, of course, that Albus Dumbledore, once Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, is no longer up to the task of managing the prestigious school of Hogwarts.

" 'I think the appointment of the Inquisitor is a first step toward ensuring that Hogwarts has a headmaster in whom we can all repose confidence,' said a Ministry insider last night.

"Wizengamot elders Griselda Marchbanks and Tiberius Ogden have resigned in protest at the introduction of the post of Inquisitor to Hogwarts.

" 'Hogwarts is a school, not an outpost of Cornelius Fudge's office,' said Madam Marchbanks. "This is a further disgusting attempt to discredit Albus Dumbledore.' (For a full account of Madam Marchbanks' alleged links to subversive goblin groups, turn to page 17)."

Hermione finished reading and looked across the table at Harry and Ron.

"So now we know how we ended up with Umbridge! Fudge passed this 'Educational Decree' and forced her on us! And now he's given her the power to inspect other teachers!" Hermione was breathing fast and her eyes were very bright. "I can't believe this. It's _outrageous…."_

"I know it is," said Harry, whose right hand was clenching the tabletop.

But a grin slowly spread across Ron's face.

"What?" said Hermione and Harry together, staring at him.

"Oh, I can't wait to see McGonagall inspected," said Ron happily. "Umbridge won't know what hit her."

Realizing what time it was Hermione jumped up and said, "Well, come on we'd better get going, if she's inspecting Binns's class we don't want to be late…."

But Professor Umbridge was not inspecting their History of Magic lesson, which was just as dull as the previous Monday, nor was she in Snape's dungeon when they arrived for double Potions, where Hermione's moonstone essay was handed back to her with a large, spiky black E scrawled in the upper corner.

"I have awarded you the grades you would have received if you presented this work on your O.W.L," said Snape with a smirk as he swept among them, passing back their homework. "This should give you a realistic idea of what to expect in your examination."

Snape reached the front of the class and turned on his heel to face them.

"The general standard of this homework was abysmal. Most of you would have failed had this been your examination. I expect to see a great deal more effort for this week's essay on the various varieties of venom antidotes, or shall I have to start handing out detentions to those dunces who get D's."

He smirked as Malfoy sniggered and said a carrying whisper, "Some people got _D's_? Ha!"

Hermione, curious to see what Harry got, turned and tried to make out the letter in the corner of his paper. But before she could figure it out he had slid it into his bag.

Hermione followed the instructions on the board precisely, and was rewarded with a clear turquoise Strengthening Solution. And she placed her flask of it to Professor Snape's desk at the end of the lesson.

"Well, that wasn't as bad as last week, was it?" said Hermione, as they climbed the steps out of the dungeon and made their way across the entrance hall toward lunch. "And the homework didn't go too badly either, did it?"

Since neither Ron or Harry responded, she continued on, "I mean, all right. I didn't expect the top grade, not if he's marking to O.W.L. standard, but a pass is quite encouraging at this stage, wouldn't you say?"

Harry made some kind of random noise in his throat.

"Of course, a lot can happen between now and the exam, we've got plenty of time to improve, but the grades we're getting now are a sort of baseline, aren't they? Something we can build on…"

'Detail ready!'

Seven rifles pointed up towards the sky. Four others pointed at two all ready life less bodies.

'Aim!'

Taps began playing.

'Fire!'

Eleven shots rang out through the air.

'Recover arms!'

Another seven shots sounded, followed seconds later by a second volley into the sky.

'Sergeant, time to get those bodies of the wall. Get 'em prepped for burial and then put 'em in the caskets and we'll ship 'em home,' said Kit as he turned away from the firing line.

He hated that he had to do it, but it was necessary. Both of them were killed by Death Eaters sometime during the night and he had to make it look like they'd died fighting a non-wizard enemy for the folks back home. But that was the easy part. The difficult part was about to begin.

Writing the letters to their parents was the most difficult part of being the CO. It was bad enough when they died in combat between muggle forces, but when you add in the fact that they're fighting a secret war that only the wizarding world knows about makes it even worse, and even then most of the wizarding world doesn't want Voldemort to be back so that adds another level of deception needed in the letters.

Sitting down in his chair he leaned back and rested his neck. Since they were now officially at war no one went anywhere, or did anything without a helmet on. Lifting his head off the back of the chair he turned to the typewriter that sat off to the side on the desk in front of him. Reaching over he pulled it over to where it sat directly in front of him. Inserting a sheet of paper into the back he began the letter.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I regret to inform you that your son, Private First Class Robert A. Stillwell, was killed in action. The full details of his death are classified, but I can assure you that PFC Stillwell died doing his duty and performing, as a soldier should. He died a hero in the service of his country, and his many sacrifices will not be forgotten by the comrades who he has left behind.

And though no words of mine can aswage the anguish brought on by his death and that the world is a lesser place without him, but I am confident that he is with God and the Angels in heaven and it has become a better place because of him. And we can all look forward to meeting him again in the next life.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully,

Major General Kitoriav Lightningstrider

United States Army SOCOM

Pulling out the letter he placed it upon the desk and signed his name under the last line. Pushing it off to the side he began the same letter again for the other soldier who was killed. Changing only the name.

When he finished the second letter he signed it, placed it on top of the other one and then picked the two up walked outside of the tent and turned to one of the two guards standing outside.

'See to it that these make it out with the rest of the mail.'

'Yes, sir!'

Kit was about to turn to reenter the tent when he heard Dekker call out his name. 'Kit!'

Turning to face him Kit asked, 'What's up?'

'Care of Magical Creatures is about to being.'

'Roger that, get everyone on alert I want all birds on alert five, and I want everyone to be ready to roll out on a moments notice.'

'Yes, sir. Oh, and sir.'

'Yes?'

'Umbridge is inspecting Care of Magical Creatures.'

'Great. Let's hope nothing happens and we are going to roll out just to be sure.'

'Roger that sir.'

Minutes later they sat inside the Blackhawk which was silent and would not be detected due to the disillusionment charms placed on it, and every soldier inside the Blackhawk was also disillusioned.

'Coming up on the target area now sir,' said one of the pilots.

Sure enough Kit saw the forms of students walking down to their lesson from the castle. Spotting a small clump of three walking one had dark black hair, another brown and one was bright red.

'Pilot, can you see anyone on the Astronomy tower. If not get us close enough so I can put a sniper team up there.'

'Roger that sir.'

As they were walking down to Care of Magical Creatures Hermione noticed a slight breeze was in the air, but when it ended abruptly she noticed that the breeze wasn't natural since none of the trees to the Dark Forest were swaying in the breeze. Hermione remembered something Kit had told her once before about the workings of helicopters and how the rotors produce a "down wash" which if high enough will feel like nothing more than a slight breeze.

Then remembering Sirius's words of warning from the night before she knew that helicopters were nearby just waiting for something to happen. Meanwhile Harry and Ron were talking back and forth about how great Transfiguration was because Professor Umbridge was inspecting McGonagall. Even with Harry landing himself into another weeks worth of detentions with Umbridge over a comment about Voldemort sticking out of Professor Quirrell's head. Which was followed by a thorough chewing out by Angelina and then Professor McGonagall taking away five points from Gryffindor because Harry got landed in another detention, she guessed it only made it even better, seeing Professor McGonagall get even somewhat with Umbridge, that Harry got to experience that at least once before he was to go to detention the rest of the week.

But she can't remained focused on things of the past she must now look to this lesson and try and keep Harry from getting any more detention, and keep anything from happening that would give Kit a reason to put a few bullets in anyone's head.

Sitting inside the Blackhawk Kit watched Umbridge roam throughout the class occasionally stopping to ask a question. And every time she even so much as glanced in the direction of Hermione, Kit would begin to say quietly to himself, 'Come on, just give me one hint of a reason. Come on Umbridge you know you want to. Just give me a reason. Please?'

Watching through the binoculars she saw Umbridge turn and say something to Harry, and judging on the way Ron and Hermione's demeanor changed he had just landed him in another night's detention.

Kit put the binoculars down as the class slowly began their walk back to the castle he sat up and said, 'Well can't always have something interesting happen everyday now can you? Wait until they're all in the castle and then we'll extract the sniper teams.'

'Roger that.'

Hermione and Ron sat chatting quietly in the now deserted common room. The only sound to be heard, other than their talking, was the crackling of the fire and the occasional sloshing sound of the murtlap essence made when one of them moved slightly or when Crookshanks jumped either out of or into either of their laps. Finally at around midnight the portrait door opened up and in came Harry with a blood stained scarf wrapped around his hand.

When he got closer to where they were sitting Hermione said anxiously, "Here soak your hand in that, it's a solution of strained and pickled murtlap tentacles, it should help."

Hermione could visibly see the relief spreading across Harry's face when he placed his hand in the bowl. Crookshanks curled around his legs and then jumped into his lap purring loudly.

Scratching behind Crookshanks's ears with his left hand Harry said, "Thanks."

"I still reckon you should complain about this," said Ron in a low voice.

"No," said Harry flatly.

"McGonagall would go nuts if she knew —"

"Yeah, she probably would," said Harry dully. "And how long d'you reckon it'd take Umbridge to pass another Decree saying anyone who complains about the High Inquisitor gets sacked immediately?"

Ron opened his mouth to retort but nothing came out and after a moment he closed it again in a defeated sort of way.

"She's an awful woman," said Hermione quietly. "_Awful_. You know, I was just saying to Ron when you came in… we've got to do something about her."

"I suggested poison," said Ron grimly.

"No…. and besides if I wanted Umbridge dead I could have it done in a spectacular display of force, but —"

"Bloody hell then Hermione! Then why haven't you done it yet?" said Ron.

"Honestly Ron, anyway, I mean something about what a dreadful teacher she is, and how we're not going to learn any defense from her at all," said Hermione completing her thought.

"Well, what can we do about that?" said Ron, yawning. "'S too late, isn't it? She got the job, and she's here to stay, Fudge'll make sure of that."

"Well," said Hermione tentatively. "You know, I was thinking today…." She shot a quick nervous glance at Harry before continuing on, "I was thinking that — maybe the time's come when we should just — just do it ourselves."

"Do what ourselves?" said Harry suspiciously.

"Well — learn Defense Against the Dark Arts ourselves," said Hermione.

"Come off it," groaned Ron. "You want us to do extra work? D'you realize Harry and I are behind on homework again and it's only the second week?"

"But this is much more important than homework!" said Hermione.

Harry and Ron goggled at her.

"I didn't think there was anything in the universe more important than homework," said Ron.

"Don't be silly, of course there is! It's about preparing ourselves, like Harry said in Umbridge's first lesson, for what's waiting out there. It's about making sure we really can defend ourselves. If we don't learn anything for a whole year —"

"We can't do much by ourselves," said Ron in a defeated voice. "I mean, all right, we can go and look jinxes up in the library and try and practice them, I suppose —"

"No, I agree, we've gone past the stage where we can just learn things out of books," said Hermione. "We need a teacher, a proper one, who can show us how to use the spells and correct us if we're going wrong."

"If you're talking about Lupin…" Harry began.

"No, no, I'm not talking about Lupin," said Hermione. "He's too busy with the Order and anyway, the most we could see him is during Hogsmeade weekends and that's not nearly often enough."

"Who, then?" said Harry, frowning at Hermione.

Hermione sighed very deeply.

"Isn't it obvious?" she said. "I'm talking about _you_, Harry."

There was a moment's silence. A light breeze rattled the windowpanes behind Ron and the fire guttered.

"About me what?" said Harry.

"I'm talking about _you_ teaching us Defense Against the Dark Arts." Hermione sat there looking at Harry, who turned to face Ron, who was frowning slightly before he said, "That's an idea."

"What's an idea?" said Harry.

"You," said Ron. "Teaching us to do it."

"But…"

Harry was grinning at this point, Hermione wasn't sure if it was a nervous grin or if the idea was taking a hold on him.

"But I'm not a teacher, I can't —"

"Harry, you're the best in the year at Defense Against the Dark Arts," said Hermione.

"Me?" said Harry, who was now grinning more broadly than she'd ever seen. "No I'm not, you've beaten me in every test-"

"Actually, I haven't," said Hermione coolly. "You beat me in our third year — the only year we both sat the test and had a teacher who actually knew the subject. But I'm not talking about test results, Harry. Look at what you've _done_!"

"How d'you mean?"

"You know what, I'm not sure I want someone this stupid teaching me," Ron said to Hermione, smirking slightly. He turned to Harry. "Let's think," he said, pulling a face like Goyle concentrating. "Uh… first year — you save the Stone from You-Know-Who."

"But that was luck, said Harry, "that wasn't skill —"

"Second year," Ron interrupted, "you killed the basilisk and destroyed Riddle."

"Yeah, but if Fawkes hadn't turned up I —"

"Third year," said Ron, louder still, "you fought off about a hundred dementors at once —"

"You know that was a fluke, if the Time-Turner hadn't —"

"Last year," Ron said, almost shouting now, "you fought off You-Know-Who again —"

"Listen to me!" said Harry, with an almost angry note in his voice. Hermione and Ron were both smirking at this point. "Just listen to me, all right? It sounds great when you say it like that, but all that stuff was luck — I didn't know what I was going half the time, I didn't plan any of it, I just did whatever I could think of, and nearly always had help —"

Hermione and Ron were still smirking, though Hermione could see Harry begin to get angry.

"Don't sit there grinning like you know better than I do, I was there, wasn't I?" he said heatedly. "I know what went on, all right? And I didn't get through any of that because I was brilliant at Defense Against the Dark Arts, I got through it all because — because help came at the right time, or because I guessed right — but I just blundered through it all, I didn't have a clue what I was doing — STOP LAUGHING!"

The bowl of murtlap essence fell to the floor and smashed. Harry was standing up now. Crookshanks had streaked away under a sofa; Hermione and Ron were no longer smiling.

"_You don't know what it's like!_ You — neither of you —you've never had to face him, have you? You think it's just memorizing a bunch of spells and throwing them at him, like you're in class or something? The whole time you're sure you know there's nothing between you and dying except your own — your own brain or guts or whatever — like you can think straight when you know you're about a second away from being murdered, or tortured, or watching your friends die —they've never taught us that in their classes, what it's like to deal with things like that — and you two sit there acting like I'm a clever little boy to be standing here alive, like Diggory was stupid, like he messed up — you just don't get it, that could just as easily have been me, it would have been if Voldemort hadn't needed me —"

"We weren't saying anything like that, mate," said Ron, looking aghast. "We weren't having a go at Diggory, we didn't — you've got the wrong end of the —"

He looked helplessly at Hermione, who was dealing with the urge to put Harry in his place about neither of them knowing anything about being in a life or death situation. Hermione couldn't help but think to herself that she couldn't remember the last time he was less than a foot away from three people who were shot and had any of those bullets gone astray she very well could have been killed. Or when was the last time Harry found himself stuck underneath the body of someone who weighed more than twice his own with bullets raining over the top of his head? But she didn't want a shouting match to erupt in the middle of the night. "Harry," she began softly, "don't you see? This… this is exactly why we need you…. We need to know what it's r-really like…. facing him… facing V-Voldemort."

Harry, still breathing heavily, appeared calmed. It was the first time she had ever said Voldemort's name. She suddenly realized how tired she was.

"Well… think about it," she said quietly. "Please?"

Harry nodded slightly.

Hermione stood up.

"Well, I'm off to bed," she said trying to make her voice sound natural. "Erm… 'night."

She turned and walked to her dormitory and fell asleep seconds after hitting the bed to dreams of small children walking and one always on a tree stump being ignored by the others. But as always the sun was in just the right spot to where only the general outline of the figures could be made out no detail, just blurry half-visible darkened figures.


	14. In the Hog's Head

Chapter Fourteen

Hermione did not ask Harry about giving Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons for two weeks since she last suggested it. Harry no longer had detentions with Umbridge, and Ron, from what she gathered from Harry and other members of the Quidditch team, was steadily improving. In Transfiguration she had not only managed to vanish her mouse but she had actually progressed to kittens. Meanwhile Harry and Ron had finally been able to vanish their mice. It was on a wild, blustery evening at the end of September, when all three of them were in the library looking up potion ingredients for Snape.

"I was wondering," Hermione said suddenly, "whether you'd thought any more about Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry."

" 'Course I have," said Harry grumpily. "Can't forget it, can we, with that hag teaching us —"

"I mean the idea Ron and I had" — Ron cast her an alarmed, threatening kind of look; she frowned at him — "oh, all right, the idea _I_ had, then — about you teaching us."

At first Harry didn't answer.

"Well," he started off slowly, "yeah, I — I've thought about it a bit."

"And?" said Hermione eagerly.

"I dunno," said Harry.

"I thought it was a good idea from the start," said Ron, who seemed keener to join in this conversation now that he was sure that Harry wasn't going to start shouting again.

Hermione watched as Harry shifted slightly in his seat.

"You did listen to what I said about a load of it being luck, did you?"

"Yes, Harry," said Hermione gently, "but all the same, there's no point pretending that you're not good at Defense Against the Dark Arts, because you are. You were the only person last year who could throw off the Imperius Curse completely, you can produce a Patronus, you can do all sorts of stuff that full-grown wizards can't, Viktor always said —"

Ron looked around at her so fast he appeared to crick his neck; rubbing it, he said, "Yeah? What did Vicky say?"

"Ho ho," said Hermione in a bored voice. "He said Harry knew how to do stuff even he didn't, and he was in the final year at Durmstrang."

Ron was looking at Hermione suspiciously.

"You're not still in contact with him, are you?"

"So what if I am?" said Hermione coolly, she felt herself blush a little. "I can have a pen pal if I —"

"He didn't only want to be your pen pal," said Ron accusingly.

Not wishing this branch of the conversation to continue any longer, she shook her head exasperatedly and, ignoring Ron, who was continuing to watch her, said to Harry, "Well, what do you think? Will you teach us?

"Just you and Ron, yeah?"

"Well," said Hermione, slightly worried now. "Well… now, don't fly off the handle again, Harry, please… But I really think you ought to teach anyone who wants to learn. I mean, we're talking about defending ourselves against V-Voldemort — oh, don't be pathetic, Ron — it doesn't seem fair if we don't offer the chance to other people."

Harry's eyes drifted off to one side and focused there, thinking, he then said, "Yeah, but I doubt anyone except you two would want to be taught by me. I'm a nutter, remember?"

"Well, I think you might be surprised how many people would be interested in hearing what you've got to say," said Hermione seriously.

"Look," she leaned toward Harry; Ron, who was still watching her with a frown on his face, leaned forward to listen too, "you know the first weekend in October's a Hogsmeade weekend? How would it be if we tell anyone who's interested to meet us in the village and we can talk it over?"

"Why do we have to do this outside of school?" said Ron.

"Because," said Hermione, returning to the diagram of the Chinese Chomping Cabbage she was copying, "I don't think Umbridge would be very happy if she found out what we were up to."

Hermione was looking forward to the Hogsmeade trip, though was slightly worried about Sirius turning up, but she didn't think Sirius would do something like that.

"Well, you can't blame him for wanting to get out and about," said Ron when Harry discussed his fears with her and Ron. "I mean, he's been on the run for over two years, hasn't he and I know that can't have been a laugh, but at least he was free, wasn't he? And now he's just shut up all the time with that lunatic elf."

Hermione scowled at Ron, but otherwise ignored the slight on Kreacher.

"The trouble is," she said to Harry, "until V-Voldemort—oh for heaven's _sake_ Ron—comes out into the open, Sirius is going to have to stay hidden, isn't he? I mean, the stupid Ministry isn't going to realize Sirius is innocent until they accept that Dumbledore's been telling the truth about him all along. And once the fools start catching real Death Eaters again it'll be obvious Sirius isn't one… I mean, he hasn't got the Mark, for one thing."

"I don't reckon he'd be stupid enough to turn up," said Ron bracingly. "Dumbledore'd go mad if he did and Sirius listens to Dumbledore even if he doesn't like what he hears."

Harry continued to look worried so Hermione said, "Listen, Ron and I have been sounding out people who we thought might want to learn some proper Defense Against the Dark Arts, and there are a couple who seem interested. We've told them to meet us in Hogsmeade."

"Right," said Harry vaguely.

"Don't worry, Harry," Hermione said quietly. "You've got enough on your plate without Sirius too."

The morning of the Hogsmeade visit dawned bright but windy. After breakfast they queued up in front of Filch, who matched their names to the long list of students who had permission from their parents or guardian to visit the village.

Hermione waited for Harry and Ron a few yards from where Filch was checking off students. As Harry and Ron walked to where she was standing she heard Ron say to Harry, "— Why was Filch sniffing you?"

The three of them set off at a brisk pace down the wide drive to the gates.

"I suppose he was checking me for the smell of Dungbombs," said Harry with a small laugh. "I forgot to tell you…"

And Harry began the story of sending a letter to Sirius and Filch bursting in seconds later, demanding to see the letter. Hermione found this very intriguing.

"He said he was tipped off you were ordering Dungbombs? But who had tipped him off?"

"I dunno," said Harry, shrugging. "Maybe Malfoy, he'd think it was a laugh."

They walked between the tall stone pillars topped with winged boars and turned left onto the road into the village, the wind whipping their hair into their eyes.

"Malfoy?" said Hermione, very skeptically. "Well…yes… maybe…"

Hermione began going over every possible scenario of who would want Harry's mail read. And she remained in deep thought all the way into the outskirts of Hogsmeade.

"Where are we going anyway?" Harry asked. "The Three Broomsticks?"

"Oh — no," said Hermione, coming out of her reverie, "no, it's always packed an really noisy. I've told the others to meet us in the Hog's Head, that other pub, you know the one, it's not on the main road. I think it's a bit… you know…_dodgy_… but students don't normally go there, so I don't think we'll be overheard."

They walked down the main street past Zonko's Joke Shop, where they were unsurprised to see Fred, George, and Lee Jordan, past the post office, from which owls issued at regular intervals, and turned up a side street at the top of which stood a small inn. A battered wooden sign hung from a rusty bracket over the door, with a picture upon it of a wild boar's severed head leaking blood onto the white cloth around it. The sign creaked in the wind as they approached. All three of them hesitated outside the door.

"Well, come on," said Hermione slightly nervously. Harry led the way inside.

It was not at all like the Three Broomsticks, whose large bar gave an impression of gleaming warmth and cleanliness. The Hog's Head bar comprised one small, dingy, and very dirty room that smelled strongly of something that might have been goats. The bay windows were so encrusted with grime that very little daylight could permeate the room, which was lit instead with the stubs of candles sitting on rough wooden tables. The floor seemed at first glance to be earthy, though as Harry stepped onto it he realized that there was stone beneath what seemed to be the accumulated filth of centuries.

Hermione looked over all the people sitting in the bar. There was a man at the bar whose whole head was wrapped in dirty gray bandages, though he was still managing to gulp endless glasses of some smoking fiery substance through a slit over his mouth. Two figures shrouded in hoods sat at a table in one of the windows speaking in strong Yorkshire accents; in a shadowy corner beside the fireplace sat a witch with a think, black veil that fell to her toes. They could just see the tip of her nose because it caused the veil to protrude slightly. And near the bar on the side closest to the door were four people dressed in olive-drab suits. Three of them were men and one was a woman, all of them spoke with varying Southern American accents.

"I don't know about this, Hermione," Harry muttered, as they crossed to the bar. His eyes settled on the heavily veiled witch. "Has it occurred to you Umbridge might be under that?"

"Umbridge is shorter than that woman," she said quietly. "And anyway, even if Umbridge _does_ come in here there's nothing she can do to stop us, Harry, because I've double- and triple-checked the school rules. We're not out of bounds; I specifically asked Professor Flitwick whether students were allowed to come in the Hog's Head, and he said yes, but he advised me strongly to bring our own glasses. And I've looked up everything I can think of about study groups and homework groups and they're definitely allowed. I just don't think it's a good idea if we _parade_ what we're doing."

"No," said Harry dryly, "especially as it's not exactly a homework group you're planning, is it?"

The barman sidled toward them out of a back room. He was a grumpy-looking old man with a great deal of long gray hair and beard. He was tall and thin.

"What?" he grunted.

"Three butterbeers, please," said Hermione.

The man reached beneath the counter and pulled up three very dusty, very dirty bottles, which he slammed to the bar.

"Six Sickles," he said.

"I'll get them," said Harry quickly, handing the barman the money.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione retreated to the farthest table from the bar. Except halfway there they passed the table where the four soldiers sat and one of them spotting Hermione said in a loud voice, "Captain Granger!"

Hermione spun around to face them, not quite sure how to respond. The soldier who had called out motioned for her to come closer. She turned and motioned for Harry and Ron to find them a table. When she got close to the table that the soldiers were sitting at the one that had called out her name leaned towards her and said, 'We might be off duty, but we've got all our gear next to us, so if anything goes down we'll be ready. And if anyone gives you any problem, you just signal to us and we'll take care of 'em for ya.'

"Erm… Thanks," said Hermione.

Hermione began to walk back to the table where Harry and Ron were sitting.

"What was that about Hermione?" Ron asked as Hermione sat down.

"I'll tell you later," said Hermione.

"So who did you say is supposed to be meeting us?" Harry asked, wrenching open the rusty top of his butterbeer and taking a swig.

"Just a couple of people," Hermione said, checking her watch and then looking anxiously toward the door. "I told them to be here about now and I'm sure they all know where it is — oh look, this might be them now —"

The door of the pub had opened. A thick band of dusty sunlight split the room in two for a moment and then vanished, blocked by the incoming rush of a crowd of people.

First came Neville with Dean and Lavender, who were closely followed by Parvati and Padma Patil with Cho and one of her usually giggling girlfriends, then Luna Lovegood; then Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet, and Angelina Johnson, Colin and Dennis Creevey, Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Hannah Abbott, and a Hufflepuff girl with long plait down her back whose name Hermione wasn't sure of; Anthony Goldstien, Michael Corner, and Terry Boot; Ginny, closely followed by a tall skinny boy with and upturned nose that Hermione didn't know, and bringing up the rear, Fred and George Weasley with their friend Lee Jordan, all three of whom were carrying large paper bags crammed with Zonko's merchandise.

"A couple of people?" said Harry hoarsely to Hermione. "_A couple of people_?"

"Yes, well, the idea seemed quite popular," said Hermione happily. "Ron, do you want to pull up some more chairs?"

The barman had frozen in the act of wiping out a glass with a rag so filthy it looked as though it had never been washed. Possibly he had never seen his pub so full.

"Hi," said Fred, reaching the bar first and counting his companions quickly. "Could we have… twenty-five butterbeers please?"

The barman glared at him for a moment, then, throwing down his rag irritably as though he had been interrupted in the something very important, he started passing up dusty butterbeers from under the bar.

"Cheers," said Fred, handing them out. "Cough up, everyone, I haven't got enough gold for all of these…."

Hermione watched as the large chattering group took up their beers from Fred and rummaged in their robes to find coins. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Harry turn to her. She turned to look at Harry.

"What have you been telling people?" he said in a low voice. "What are they expecting?"

"I've told you, they just want to hear what you've got to say," said Hermione soothingly; but Harry continued to stare at her so furiously that she added quickly, "You don't have to do anything yet, I'll speak to them first."

"Hi, Harry," said Neville, beaming and taking a seat opposite Harry.

Hermione sat there watching people take her seats, occasionally starring past them to look at the four soldiers watching all the people take their seats with neutral expressions. Cho smiled at Harry and sat down on Ron's right. Her friend, who had curly reddish-blonde hair, did not smile but shot Harry a look of contempt. Hermione began to try and think of what to say once all these people were seated.

In twos and threes the new arrivals settled around Harry, Ron, and Hermione, some looking rather excited, others curious, Luna Lovegood gazing dreamily into space (Hermione shook her head in amazement). When everybody had pulled up a chair, the chatter died out. Every eye was upon Harry.

"Er," said Hermione, her voice slightly higher than usual out of nerves. "Well — er — hi."

The group focused its attention on her instead, though eyes continued to dart back regularly to Harry.

"Well… erm… well, you know why you're here. Erm… well, Harry here had the idea — I mean" — Harry had thrown her a sharp look — "I had the idea—that it might be good if people who want to study Defense Against the Dark Arts—and I mean, really study it, you know, not the rubbish that Umbridge is doing with us" — (Hermione's voice became suddenly much stronger and more confident) — "because nobody could call that Defense Against the Dark Arts" — "Hear, hear," said Anthony Goldstien, and Hermione felt heartened — "well, I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands."

Hermione paused, looked sideways at Harry, and went on, "And by that I mean learning how to defend ourselves properly, not just theory but the real spells —"

"You want to pass your Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. too though, I bet?" said Michael Corner, who was watching her closely.

Behind them she saw the soldiers tense.

"Of course I do," said Hermione at one. "But I want more than that, I want to be properly trained in Defense because… because…" Hermione breathed deeply and finished, "Because Lord Voldemort's back."

The reaction was immediate and predictable, Cho's friend shrieked and slopped butterbeer down herself, Terry Boot gave a kind of involuntary twitch, Padma Patil shuddered, and Neville gave a kind of odd yelp that he managed to turn into a cough. All of them, however, looked fixedly, even eagerly, at Harry.

"Well… that's the plan anyway," said Hermione. "If you want to join us, we need to decide how we're going to —"

"Where's the proof You-Know-Who's back?" said the blond Hufflepuff player in an aggressive voice.

Behind them one of the soldiers raised her eyebrows and tilted her head to the side and looked at Hermione. Hermione barely shook her head no at to her.

"Well, Dumbledore believe it —" Hermione began.

"You mean, Dumbledore believes _him_," said the blond boy, nodded at Harry.

"Who are _you_?" said Ron rather rudely.

"Zacharias Smith," said the boy, "and I think we've got the right to know exactly what makes _him_ say You-Know-Who's back."

"Look," said Hermione, intervening swiftly to prevent either a fight, or Harry loosing his temper, "that's really not what this meeting was supposed to be about —"

"It's okay, Hermione," said Harry.

"What makes me say You-Know-Who's back?" he repeated, looking Zacharias straight in the face. "I saw him. But Dumbledore told the whole school what happened last year, and if you didn't believe him, you don't believe me, and I'm not wasting an afternoon trying to convince anyone."

The whole group seemed to have held its breath while Harry spoke. Hermione noticed that the barman had been wiping the same glass with the filthy rag; it was becoming steadily dirtier.

Zacharias said dismissively, "All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought Diggory's body back to Hogwarts. He didn't give us details, he didn't tell us exactly how Diggory got murdered, I think we'd all like to know —"

"If you've come to hear exactly what it looks like when Voldemort murders someone I can't help you," Harry said, his eyes never leaving Zacharias's face. "I don't want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right? So if that's what you're here for, you might as well clear out."

Hermione ignored the look that Harry had given her, and since no one was leaving she began again.

"So," said Hermione, her voice very high-pitched again. "So… like I was saying… if you want to learn some defense, then we need to work out how we're going to do it, how often we're going to meet, and where we're going to —"

"Is it true," interrupted the girl with the long plait down her back, looking at Harry, "that you can produce a Patronus?"

There was a murmur of interest around the group at this.

"Yeah," said Harry in a defensive tone.

"A corporeal Patronus?"

"Er — you don't know Madam Bones, do you?" Harry asked.

The girl smiled.

"She's my auntie," she said. "I'm Susan Bones. She told me about your hearing. So — is it really true? You make a stag Patronus?"

"Yes," said Harry.

"Blimey, Harry!" said Lee, looking deeply impressed. "I never knew that!"

"Mum told Ron not to spread it around," said Fred grinning at Harry. "She said you got enough attention as it was."

"She's not wrong," mumbled Harry and a couple people laughed. The veiled witch sitting alone shifted very slightly in her seat.

"And did you kill a basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office?" demanded Terry Boot. "That's what one of the portraits on the wall told me when I was in there last year…"

"Er — yeah, I did, yeah," said Harry.

Justin Finch-Fletchley whistled, the Creevey brothers exchanged awestruck looks, and Lavender Brown said "wow" softly.

"And in our first year," said Neville to the group at large, "he saved that Sorcerous Stone —"

"Sorcerer's," hissed Hermione.

"Yes, that, from You-Know-Who," finished Neville.

Hannah Abbott's eyes were as round as Galleons.

"And that's not to mention," said Cho, "all the tasks he had to get through in the Triwizard Tournament last year — getting past dragons and merpeople and acromantulas and things…"

There was a murmur of impressed agreement around the table.

"Look," he said and everyone fell silent at once, "I…I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be modest or anything, but… I had a lot of help with all that stuff…"

"Not with the dragon, you didn't," said Michael Corner at once. "That was a seriously cool bit of flying…."

"Yeah, well —" said Harry.

"And nobody helped you get rid of those dementors this summer," said Susan Bones.

"No," said Harry, "no, okay, I know I did bits of it without help, but the point I'm trying to make is —"

"Are you trying to weasel out of showing us any of this stuff?" said Zacharias Smith.

"Here's an idea," said Ron loudly, before Harry could speak, "why don't you shut your mouth?"

Perhaps the word "weasel" had affected Ron particularly strongly; in any case, he was now looking at Zacharias as though he would like nothing better than to thump him. Zacharias flushed.

"Well, we've all turned up to learn from him, and now he's telling us he can't really do any of it," he said.

"That's not what he said," snarled Fred Weasley.

"Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?" inquired George, pulling a long and lethal-looking metal instrument from inside one of the Zonko's bags.

"Or any part of your body, really, we're not fussy where we stick this," said Fred.

"Yes, well," said Hermione hastily, "moving on… the point is, are we agreed we want to take lessons from Harry?"

There was a murmur of general agreement. Zacharias folded his arms and said nothing, though perhaps this was because he was too busy keeping an eye on the instrument in George's hand.

"Right," said Hermione, relieved that they had finally settled something at last. "Well, then, the next question is how often do we do it. I really don't think there's any point in meeting less than once a week —"

"Hang on," said Angelina, "we need to make sure this doesn't clash with our Quidditch practice."

"No," said Cho, "nor with ours."

"Nor ours," added Zacharias Smith.

"I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone," said Hermione, feeling slightly impatient, "but you know, this is rather important, we're talking about learning to defend ourselves against V-Voldemort's Death Eaters —"

"Well said!" barked Ernie Macmillan, "Personally I think this is really important, possibly more important than anything else we'll do this year, even with our O.W.L.s coming up!"

He looked around impressively, as though waiting for people to cry, "Surely not!" When nobody spoke, he went on, "I personally, am at a lose to see why the Ministry has foisted such a useless teacher upon us at this critical period. Obviously they are in denial about the return of You-Know-Who, but to give us a teacher who is trying to actively prevent us from using defensive spells —"

"We think the reason Umbridge doesn't want us trained in Defense Against the Dark Arts," said Hermione, "is that she's got some… some mad idea that Dumbledore could use the students in the school as a kind of private army (Hermione looked past the group to the table full of soldiers from Dumbledore's Army when she said this). She thinks he'd mobilize us against the Ministry."

Nearly everybody looked stunned at this news; everybody except Luna Lovegood, who piped up, "Well, that makes sense. After all Cornelius Fudge has got his own private army."

"What?" said Harry.

"Yes, he's got an army of heliopaths," said Luna solemnly.

"No, he hasn't," snapped Hermione thoroughly annoyed.

"Yes, he has," said Luna.

"What are heliopaths?" asked Neville, looking blank.

"They're spirits of fire," said Luna, her protuberant eyes widening so that she looked madder than ever. "Great tall flaming creatures that gallop across the ground burning everything in front of —"

"They don't exist, Neville," said Hermione tartly.

"Oh yes they do!" said Luna angrily.

"I'm sorry, but where's the _proof_ of that?" snapped Hermione.

"There are plenty of eyewitness accounts, just because you're so narrow-minded you need to have everything shoved under your nose before you —"

"_Hem, Hem_," said Ginny in such a good imitation of Professor Umbridge that several people looked around in alarm and then laughed. "Weren't we trying to decide how often we're going to meet and get Defense lessons?

"Yes," said Hermione at once, "yes, we were, you're right…."

"Well, once a week sounds cool," said Lee Jordan.

"As long as —" began Angelina.

"Yes, yes, we know about the Quidditch," said Hermione in a tense voice. "Well, the other thing to decide how often we're going to meet…."

This was rather more difficult; the whole group fell silent.

"Library?" suggested Katie Bell after a few moments.

"I can't see Madam Pince being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in the library," said Harry.

"Maybe an unused classroom?" said Dean.

"Yeah," said Ron, "McGonagall might let us have hers, she did when Harry was practicing for the Triwizard…."

"Right, well, we'll try to find somewhere," said Hermione. "We'll send a message round to everybody when we've got a time and place for the first meeting."

Bending down she began to rummage through her bag and produced parchment and a quill; she paused for a second and then began to speak.

"I-I think everybody should write their name down, just so we know who was here. But I also think," Hermione took a deep breath, "that we all ought to agree not to shout about what we're doing. So if you sign, you're agreeing not to tell Umbridge — or anybody else — what we're up to."

Fred reached out for the parchment and cheerfully put down his signature, but Hermione saw that several of the others looked less than happy about at the prospect of putting their names on the list.

"Er…" said Zacharias slowly, not taking the parchment that George was trying to pass to him. "Well… I'm sure Ernie will tell me when the meeting is."

But Ernie was looking rather hesitant about signing too. Hermione raised her eyebrows at him.

"I — well, we are _prefects_," Ernie burst out. "And if this list was found… well, I mean to say… you said it yourself, if Umbridge finds out…"

"You just said this group was the most important thing you'd do this year," Harry reminded him.

"I — yes," said Ernie, "yes, I do believe that, it's just…"

"Ernie, do you really think I'd leave that list lying around?" said Hermione testily.

Nobody raised objections after Ernie, though Cho's friend gave a reproachful look before adding her name. When the last person — Zacharias — had signed, she took the parchment back and slipped it carefully into her bag. There was an odd feeling in the group now. It was as though they had just signed some kind of contract.

"Well, time's ticking on," said Fred briskly, getting to his feet. "George, Lee, and I have got items of a sensitive nature to purchase, we'll be seeing you all later."

In twos and threes the rest of the group took their leave too. Cho made rather a business of fastening the catch on her bag before leaving, her long dark curtain of hair swinging forward to hide her face, but her friend stood beside her, arms folded, clicking her tongue, so that Cho had little choice but to leave with her. As her friend ushered her through the door, Cho looked back and waved at Harry.

Hermione relaxed a little in her seat once everyone had left except for Ron and Harry. She sat there with a feeling of relief and satisfaction. Relieved that it was over with, and satisfied that this was official.

"Well, I think that went quite well," said Hermione happily as they walked out of the Hog's Head into the bright sunlight a few moments later, Harry and Ron still clutching their bottles of butterbeer.

"That Zacharias bloke's a wart," said Ron, who was glowering after the figure of Smith just discernible in the distance.

"I don't like him much either," admitted Hermione, "but he overheard me talking to Ernie and Hannah at the Hufflepuff table and he seemed really interested in coming, so what could I say? But the more people the better really — I mean, Michael Corner and his friends wouldn't have come if he hadn't been going out with Ginny —"

Ron, who had been draining the last few drops from his butterbeer bottle, gagged and sprayed butterbeer down his front.

"He's WHAT?" said Ron, outraged, his ears now resembled curls of raw beef. "She's going out with — my sister's going — what d'you mean, Michael Corner?"

"Well, that's why he and his friends came, I think — well, they're obviously interested in learning defense, but if Ginny hadn't told Michael what was going on —"

"When did this — when did she —?"

"They met at the Yule Ball and they got together at the end of last year," said Hermione composedly. They had turned into the High Street and she stopped outside of Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, where there was a handsome display of pheasant-feather quills in the window.

"Hmm… I could do with a new quill."

Hermione turned and entered the shop. Harry and Ron followed behind.

"Which one was Michael Corner?" Ron demanded furiously.

"The dark one," said Hermione.

"I didn't like him," said Ron at once.

"Big surprise," said Hermione under her breath.

"But," said Ron, following Hermione along a row of quills in copper pots, "I thought Ginny fancied Harry!"

Hermione looked at him rather pityingly and shook her head.

"Ginny _used_ to fancy Harry, but she gave up on him months ago. Not that she doesn't _like_ you of course," she added kindly to Harry whilst she examined a long black-and-gold quill.

"So that's why she talks now?" Harry asked Hermione. "She never used to talk in front of me."

"Exactly," said Hermione. "Yes, I think I'll have this one…."

She went up to the counter and handed over fifteen Sickles and two Knuts, Ron still breathing down her neck.

"Ron," she said severely as she turned and trod on his feet, "this is exactly why Ginny hasn't told you she's seeing Michael, she knew you'd take it badly. So don't harp on it for heaven's sake."

"What d'you mean, who's taking anything badly? I'm not going to _harp on_ about anything…"

Ron continued to chunter under his breath all the way down the street. Hermione rolled her eyes to Harry and then said in an undertone, while Ron was muttering imprecations about Michael Corner, "And talking about Michael and Ginny… what about Cho and you?"

"What d'you mean?" said Harry quickly, though he was unable to stop from blushing slightly.

"Well," said Hermione, smiling slightly, "she just couldn't keep her eyes off you, could she?"

Harry didn't respond.


	15. Red Flag Raised

Chapter Fifteen

Hermione had just finished getting ready when a loud wailing klaxonlike sound shattered the early morning peace. Hermione walked out of her dormitory and slid down the stairs, which had melded together to make a slide.

"Hermione's allowed in our dormitory, how come we're not allowed — ?" Hermione overheard Ron say to Harry.

"Well, it's an old fashioned rule," said Hermione, who had just slid neatly onto a rug in front of them and was now standing up, "but it says in _Hogwarts, A History_ that the founders thought boys were less trustworthy than girls. Anyway, why were you trying to get in there?"

Ron grabbed Hermione and dragged her over to the notice board saying, "To see you — look at this!"

Hermione read the new sign rapidly and her expression became stony.

——— **BY ORDER OF** ———

****

The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts

All Student Organizations, Societies, Teams, Groups, and Clubs are henceforth disbanded.

An Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club is hereby defined as a regular meeting of three or more students.

Permission to re-form may be sought from the High Inquisitor (Professor Umbridge).

No Student Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club may exist without the knowledge and approval of the High Inquisitor.

Any student found to have formed, or to belong to, an Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club that has not been approved by the High Inquisitor will be expelled.

__

The Above is in accordance with

Educational Decree Number Twenty-four.

Signed:

Dolores Jane Umbridge

****

High inquisitor

"Someone must have blabbed to her!" Ron said angrily.

"They can't have done," said Hermione in a low voice.

"You're so naïve," said Ron, "you think just because you're all honorable and trustworthy —"

"No, they can't have done because I put a jinx on that piece of parchment we all signed," said Hermione grimly. "Believe me, if anyone's run off and told Umbridge, we'll know exactly who they are and they will really regret it."

It suddenly just dawned on Hermione that if anyone did tell Umbridge not only would the jinx take its toll, but she doubted very seriously that she or anyone else could hold Kit back on his retaliation. And he would know exactly who said anything.

"What'll happen to them?" said Ron eagerly.

Hermione debated if she should tell them what she had just realized. And decided that it would be best if they only knew what the jinx would do.

"Well, put it this way," said Hermione, "it'll make Eloise Midgen's acne look like a couple of cute freckles. Come on, let's get down to breakfast and see what the others think…. I wonder whether this has been put up in all the Houses?"

It was immediately apparent on entering the Great Hall that Umbridge's sign had not only appeared in Gryffindor Tower. There was a peculiar intensity about the chatter and an extra measure of movement in the Hall as people scurried up and down their tables conferring on what they had read. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had barely taken their seats when Neville, Dean, Fred, George, and Ginny descended upon them.

"Did you see it?"

"D'you reckon she knows?"

"What are we going to do?"

They were all looking at Harry, who glanced around to make sure that no teachers were near them.

"We're going to do it anyway, of course," he said quietly.

"Knew you'd say that," said George, beaming and thumping Harry on the arm.

"The prefects as well?" said Fred, looking quizzically at Ron and Hermione.

"Of course," said Hermione coolly.

"Here comes Ernie and Hannah Abbott," said Ron, looking over his shoulder. "_And_ those Ravenclaw blokes and Smith… and no one looks very spotty."

Hermione instantly went on alert.

"Never mind spots, the idiots can't come over here now, it'll look really suspicious — sit down!" she mouthed to Ernie and Hannah, gesturing frantically to them to rejoin the Hufflepuff table. "Later! We'll — talk — to — you —_ later_!"

"I'll tell Michael," said Ginny impatiently, swinging herself off her bench. "The fool, honestly…"

She hurried off toward the Ravenclaw table.

But for Harry and Ron the full effect of the sign were not felt until they had left the Great Hall for History of Magic when Angelina informed them that they had to get Professor Umbridge's permission to reform the Gryffindor team.

"Bet Umbridge is in History of Magic," said Ron grimly, as they set off for Binns's lesson. "She hasn't inspected Binns yet…. Bet you anything she's there…."

But he was wrong; the only teacher present when they entered was Professor Binns, floating an inch or so above his chair as usual and preparing to continue his monotonous drone on giant wars. Hermione could tell that Harry wasn't even making an attempt to listen to Professor Binns.

As she was taking notes she detected movement at the window. Looking out the window she saw Hedwig looking directly at Harry with a letter attached to her leg. Hermione attempted to get Harry's attention by nudging him in the arm. After several failed attempts Hermione jabbed Harry viscously in the ribs to get his attention. Harry looked up angrily at her.

"_What?_"

Hermione pointed at the window. Harry turned to look out the window. Other people in the class were beginning to point out Hedwig to each other.

"Oh, I've always loved that owl, she's so beautiful," Hermione overheard Lavender sigh to Parvati.

Hermione continued to take notes on what Professor Binns droning on about. Completely unaware of how little anyone was paying attention to him. Harry returned to his seat and placed Hedwig in his lap.

"She's hurt!" Harry whispered. Both Hermione and Ron leaned in closer; Hermione put her quill down on the desk. "Look — there's something wrong with her wing —"

Hedwig was quivering; whenever Harry attempted to touch the wing she would give a little jump, all her feathers on end as though she was inflating herself, and gazed up at Harry reproachfully.

"Professor Binns," said Harry loudly, everyone in the class turned to look at him. "I'm not feeling well."

Professor Binns raised his eyes from his notes, looking amazed, as always, to find the room in front of him full of people.

"Not feeling well?" he repeated hazily.

"Not at all well," said Harry standing up, concealing Hedwig behind his back. "So I think I'll need to go to the hospital wing."

"Yes," said Professor Binns, clearly very much wrong-footed. "Yes… yes, hospital wing… well, off you go, then, Perkins…"

Hermione watched as Harry walked out of the classroom. As she continued to take notes she wondered what had happened to Hedwig. She began mentally listing all of the things she knew that could do something like that to Hedwig. Ranging from running into a first year who was having their first experience on a broomstick, the Whomping Willow, and Hedwig possibly running into one of the helicopters' rotors that Kit had orbiting the school, but she quickly ruled that one out because at the speed of which those were spinning she would have been shredded. Hermione shuddered at the mental picture that brought to mind. Then she remembered what Harry had said about Filch being tipped off that Harry was ordering Dungbombs. And it could be entirely possible that Umbridge had attempted to intercept Hedwig in order to read Harry's mail.

'Six-one this is six-four, go to UHF secure. I've got some bad news.'

'Six-four this is six-one go ahead.'

'From what I'm hearin' on the ground looks like they're watchin' all comms in and out of the castle. Best inform Kit so he can get the word around.'

'Roger that six-four, will pass the word on up. In the mean time continue your orbit of the target area and provide sniper cover.'

'Roger, six-four out.'

'Kit!' Shouted Leon. 'Kit, we found something I think you'll want to see.'

'Whatcha got for me Doc?' Asked Kit looking at Leon.

'Super Eight-five was doing a routine patrol about two klicks out when they picked up something on the thermals. Well they dropped down to check it out and they found two Death Eaters in the forest, possibly new recruits, I'm not really sure. But according to their wands these were the two fethers who killed Stillwell and Roberts last week. Most likely they were on their way back to take out another few of our guys.

'I figured you'd want to know as soon as you could. We tried to figure out where Voldemort was located, but they didn't know, we gave 'em some Veritaserum and they still didn't know. They didn't even see the face of their recruiter so they couldn't tell us anything about that either.'

Kit's appearance changed visibly. His pupils narrowed the slight smile that was always there disappeared. 'Where are they being held?'

'Come with me, sir,' said Leon nervously.

The change in Kit was obvious to everyone at the base; the air grew tense and heavy. As if an omen to the coming event.

They arrived at the tent where the two Death Eaters were being held prisoner. Kit inspected the two with an insane glint to his eyes. Dekker, who stood behind one of the Death Eaters with his rifle pointed at the back of their heads, knew that Kit was riding shotgun and O'Malley was driving. He found himself pitying these two.

The sneers on the two Death Eaters' faces disappeared the second Kit walked into the room, and the air grew cold and heavy. Kit took the two wands from one of the soldiers standing guard and snapped them in half.

'Burn these,' Kit said to the soldier who he had taken the wands from.

Kit reached from behind his back and pulled out the pistol he always kept there. Moving to stand beside them he aimed and fired a single shot into their throats so that neither of them could do anything should they some how get their hands on a wand. He placed the pistol back to its holster. Looked down at their gasping forms, like fish out of water.

'Take down the tent, and douse it in gas. And then put it around them,' ordered Kit.

Minutes later the tent was down, and doused in gas.

'Doc, fix their throats,' ordered Kit.

'What?' Asked Leon, 'Sir, with all due respect —'

'Fix their throats, Sergeant. That's an order,' said Kit.

'Yes, sir,' said Leon pointing her wand down at the two Death Eaters lying down on the ground.

Once Leon had performed the spells; she walked away as fast as possible without running.

The Death Eaters were now hurling insults, and threats towards Kit.

Kit turned to face Dekker, 'Burn them. From this point on, no prisoners will be taken. Question any Death Eaters you come across, then shoot them. Leave their bodies there as a warning to the others that will come. When these two are cooked, take their bodies back to the spot where you found them put a sign on them and write on it, 'Try our Resolve Again', understand?'

'Yes sir.'

Dekker lit a small section of the tent on fire and walked away leaving Kit to stand by the tent alone. But the screams and the smell could not be avoided.

"No Quidditch practice," said Angelina in hollow tones when Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered the common room that night after dinner.

"But I kept my temper!" said Harry, obviously horrified. "I didn't say anything to her, Angelina, I swear, I —"

"I know, I know," said Angelina miserably. "She just said she needed a bit of time to consider."

"Consider what?" said Ron angrily. "She's given the Slytherins permission, why not us?"

Hermione while she hated that Umbridge was keeping the Gryffindor team from reforming, couldn't help but think that this would at least help both Harry and Ron catch up on their homework.

"Well, said Hermione, "look on the bright side — at least now you'll have time to do Snape's essay!"

"That's the bright side, is it?" snapped Harry, while Ron stared incredulously at Hermione. "No Quidditch practice and extra potions?"

Hermione sat quietly in her chair occasionally casting glimpses into the fire, but spent most of the time looking at the large group of people surrounding Fred and George who apparently had perfected one type of Skiving Snackbox, which they were taking turns to demonstrate to a cheering and whooping crowd.

First, Fred would take a bite out of the orange end of a chew, at which he would vomit spectacularly into a bucket they had placed in front of them. Then he would force down the purple end of the chew, at which the vomiting would immediately cease. Lee Jordan, who was assisting the demonstration, was lazily vanishing the vomit at regular intervals with a Vanishing Spell.

Unable to take any actual action Hermione only sat there, occasionally letting out a sniff of disapproval.

"Just go and stop them, then!" Harry said to Hermione irritably as he crossed something out on his paper.

"I can't, they're not _technically_ doing anything wrong," said Hermione through gritted teeth. "They're quite within their rights to eat the foul things themselves, and I can't find a rule that says the other idiots aren't entitled to buy them, not unless they're proven to be dangerous in some way, and it doesn't look as though they are…."

Hermione, Harry, and Ron watched George projectile-vomit into the bucket, gulp down the rest of the chew, and straighten up, beaming with arms wide to protracted applause.

"You know, I don't get why Fred and George only got three O.W.L.s each," said Harry, watch as Fred, George, and Lee collected gold from the eager crowd. "They really know their stuff…."

"Oh, they only know flashy stuff that's no real use to anyone," said Hermione disparagingly.

"No real use?" said Ron in a strained voice. "Hermione, they've got about twenty-six Galleons already…."

It was a long while before the crowd around the Weasleys dispersed, and then Fred, Lee, and George sat up counting their takings even longer, so that it was well past midnight when Harry, Ron, and Hermione finally had the common room to themselves again. At long last, Fred closed the doorway to the boys' dormitories behind him, rattling his box of Galleons ostentatiously so that Hermione scowled. Harry put his Potions essay and books away. Ron meanwhile, was dozing lightly in an armchair, gave a muffled grunt, awoke, looked blearily into the fire and said, "Sirius!"

Harry and Hermione spun to face the fire. Sirius's untidy dark head was sitting in the fire again.

"Hi," he said, grinning.

"Hi," chorused Harry, Ron, and Hermione, all three kneeling down upon the hearthrug. Crookshanks purred loudly and approached the fire, trying, to despite the heat, to put his face close to Sirius's.

"How're things?" said Sirius.

"Not that good," said Harry, as Hermione pulled Crookshanks back to stop him singeing his whiskers. "The Ministry's forced through another decree, which means we're not allowed to have Quidditch teams —"

"— or secret Defense Against the Dark Arts groups?" said Sirius.

There was a short pause.

"How did you know about that?" Harry demanded.

"You want to choose your meeting places more carefully," said Sirius, grinning still more broadly. "The Hog's Head, I ask you…"

"Well, it was better than the Three Broomsticks!" said Hermione defensively. "That's always packed with people —"

"— which means you'd have been harder to overhear," said Sirius. "You've got a lot to learn, Hermione."

"Mundungus, of course. And four of Kit's men," said Sirius, and when they all looked puzzled. "He was the witch under the veil."

"That was Mundungus?" Harry said, stunned. "What was he doing in the Hog's Head?"

"What do you think he was doing?" said Sirius impatiently. "Keeping an eye on you, of course."

"I'm still being followed?" asked Harry angrily.

"Yeah, you are, as a matter of fact the only one who's not being followed is Ron of course Hermione already knows that she's being watched," said Sirius, "and just as well, isn't it, if the first thing you're going to do on your weekend off is organize an illegal defense group."

But he looked neither angry nor worried; on the contrary, he was looking at Harry with distinct pride.

"Why was Dung hiding from us?" asked Ron, sounding disappointed. "We'd've liked to've seen him."

"He was banned from the Hog's Head twenty years ago," said Sirius, "and that barman's got a long memory. We lost Moody's spare Invisibility Cloak when Sturgis was arrested, so Dung's been dressing as a witch a lot lately…. Anyway… First of all, Ron — I've sworn to pass on a message from your mother."

"Oh yeah?" said Ron, sounding apprehensive.

"She says on no account whatsoever are you to take part in an illegal secret Defense Against the Dark Arts group. She says you'll be expelled for sure and your future will be ruined. She says there will be plenty of time to lean how to defend yourself later and that you are too young to be worrying about that right now. She also" — Sirius's eyes turned to Harry and Hermione — "advises Harry and Hermione not to proceed with the group, though she accepts that she has no authority over either of them and simply begs them to remember that she has their best interests at heart. She would have written all this to you, but if the owl had been intercepted you'd have been in real trouble, and she can't say it for herself because she's on duty tonight."

"On duty doing what?" said Ron quickly.

"Never you mind, just stuff for the Order," said Sirius. "So it's fallen to me to be the messenger and make sure you tell her I passed it all on, because I don't think she trusts me to."

There was another pause in which Crookshanks, mewing, attempted to paw Sirius's head, and Ron fiddled with a hole in the hearthrug.

"So you want me to say I'm not going to take part in the defense group?" Harry muttered finally.

"Me? Certainly not!" said Sirius, looking surprised. "I think it's an excellent idea!"

"You do?" said Harry.

"Of course I do!" said Sirius. "D'you think your father and I would've lain down and taken orders from an old hag like Umbridge?"

"But — last term all you did was tell me to be careful and not take risks —"

"Last year all the evidence was that someone inside Hogwarts was trying to kill you, Harry!" said Sirius impatiently. "This year we know that there's someone outside Hogwarts who'd like to kill us all, so I think learning to defend yourselves properly is a very good idea!"

"And if we do get expelled?" Hermione asked, a quizzical look on her face.

"Hermione, this whole thing was your idea!" said Harry, staring at her.

Shrugging Hermione said, "I know it was… I just wondered what Sirius thought."

"Well, better expelled and able to defend yourselves than sitting safely in school without a clue," said Sirius.

"Hear, hear," said Harry and Ron enthusiastically.

"So," said Sirius, "how are you organizing this group? Where are you meeting?"

"Well, that's a bit of a problem now," said Harry. "Dunno where we're going to be able to go…."

"How about the Shrieking Shack?" suggested Sirius.

"Hey, that's an idea!" said Ron excitedly, but Hermione made a skeptical noise and all three of them looked at her, Sirius's head turning in the flames.

"Well, Sirius, it's just that were only four of you meeting in the Shrieking Shack when you were at school," said Hermione, "and all of you could transform into animals and I suppose you could all have squeezed under a single Invisibility Cloak if you'd wanted to. But there are twenty-eight of us and none of us is an Animagus, so we wouldn't need so much an Invisibility Cloak as an Invisibility Marquee —"

"Fair point," said Sirius, looking slightly crestfallen. "Well I'm sure you'll come up with somewhere…. There used to be a pretty roomy secret passageway behind that big mirror on the fourth floor, you might have enough space to practice jinxes in there —"

"Fred and George told me it's blocked," said Harry, shaking his head. "Caved in or something."

"Oh…" said Sirius, frowning. "Well, I'll have to think and get back to —"

He broke off. His face was suddenly tense, alarmed. He turned sideways, apparently looking into the solid brick wall of the fireplace.

"Sirius?" said Harry anxiously.

But he had vanished. Harry stared into the flames for a moment, then turned to face Ron and Hermione.

"Why did he —"

Hermione gasped in horror and leapt to her feet, staring at the hand that was groping amongst the flames, as though it was trying to catch a hold of something; a stubby, short fingered hand covered in ugly old-fashioned rings…."

The three of them ran for it. Hermione didn't look back when she closed the door to the entrance to the girls' dormitory. When she reached her bed she sat there panting breathless with fear. When she finally managed to calm herself down she changed into her nightgown and lay down. She sat there thinking about all that Sirius had said, if they were doing the right thing, why she kept dreaming of small, shadowy childlike figures always blotted out by the sun and always there was the one on the tree stump being ignored by the others.

Hermione slowly drifted off to sleep, hoping that the dream would be different if anything more clear. And the dream was different.

__

Hermione stood in front of a medium sized fire, inside the fire were two people. She could hear their screams as they were burned alive, but she was lucky not to be able to smell the odor of burning flesh. She tried to move but found that her body would not respond and so she stood there watching who ever these people were be burned alive. She was, however, able to turn her head.

But suddenly everything grew cold and Hermione turned and looked up to see Kit standing beside her. Except Kit was different his eyes held a fury behind them and an insane smile upon his face, as he stared, as if he were enjoying every moment of this. His skin looked like it belonged to someone dead and his voice was like ice. Before everything went black Hermione heard a distant voice filled with terror. 'It has begun…'

Hermione awoke, breathing rapidly and she was drenched in cold sweat. Minutes later she fell back asleep, to another dream.

__

Kit stood there, looking the same as he had in the previous dream. Except he was staring off into the darkness. Hermione stood looking at him and an old voice spoke, as moving all around her, but staying in the same spot at the same time.

'Born four days past the peak of the month in which the leaves begin to die, to those who have no knowledge of magic,' the voice faded until only the occasional breath could be heard, until the voice returned to an audible level.

'This one, aided by an unseen element, which is lead by one who is of two minds, shall bring the unseen element's leader to redemption by means of either death, or the banishment of one of the two minds. And upon the eve of the redemption's end shall the one know all that which that one must know to fulfill their task. And rebellions and wars shall follow. Yet, lead by this one our people shall be lead to a new age…'

The voice was cut of in mid sentence and standing before Hermione was Dobby, who disappeared, and Kit had returned to his normal appearance.

Hermione awoke again, except she was neither scared, nervous, or any of these things. She was only confused, and she then fell into a dreamless sleep.


	16. Dumbledore's Army

Chapter Sixteen

"Umbridge has been reading your mail, Harry. There's no other explanation."

"You think Umbridge attacked Hedwig?" Harry said, outraged.

"I'm almost certain of it," said Hermione grimly. "What your frog, it's escaping."

Charms was always one of the best lessons in which to enjoy a private chat: There was generally so much movement and activity that the danger of being overheard was very slight. Today, with the room full of croaking bullfrogs and cawing ravens, and with a heavy downpour of rain clattering and pounding against the classroom windows, Harry, Ron and Hermione's whispered discussion about how Umbridge had nearly caught Sirius went quite unnoticed.

"I've been suspecting this ever since Filch accused you of ordering Dungbombs, because it seemed such a stupid lie," Hermione whispered. "I mean once your letter had been read, it would have been quite clear that you _weren't_ ordering them, so you wouldn't have been in trouble at all — it's a bit of a feeble joke, isn't it? But then I though, what if somebody just wanted an excuse to read your mail? Well then, it would be a perfect way for Umbridge to managed it — tip off Filch, let him do the dirty work and confiscate the letter, then either find a way of stealing it from him or else demand to see it — I don't think Filch would object, when's he ever stuck up for a student's rights? Harry you're squashing your frog."

The frog was being squeezed so tightly, by Harry that its eyes were bulging; he hastily replaced it on the desk.

"It was a very close call last night," said Hermione. "I just wonder if Umbridge knows how close it was. _Silencio!_"

The bullfrog on which she was practicing her Silencing Charm was struck dumb mid-croak and glared at her reproachfully.

"If she'd caught Snuffles…."

Harry finished her sentence.

"He'd probably be back in Azkaban this morning." Harry, not really paying attention, waved his wand; his bullfrog swelled like a green balloon and emitted a high-pitched whistle.

"_Silencio!_" said Hermione hastily, pointing her wand at Harry's frog, which deflated silently before them. "Well, he mustn't do it again, that's all. I just don't know how we're going to let him know. We can't send him an owl."

"I don't reckon he'll risk it again," said Ron, "He's not stupid, he knows she nearly got him. _Silencio!_"

The large and ugly raven in front of him let out a derisive caw.

"_Silencio! SILENCIO!_"

The raven cawed more loudly.

"It's the way you're moving your wand," said Hermione, watching Ron, "You don't want to move it, it's more a sharp _jab_."

"Ravens are harder than frogs," said Ron through clenched teeth.

"Fine, let's swap," said Hermione, seizing Ron's raven and replacing it with her own fat bullfrog. "_Silencio!_" The raven continued to open and close its sharp beak, but no sound came out.

"Very good, Miss Granger!" said Professor Flitwick's squeaky little voice and Harry, Ron, and Hermione all jumped. "Now, let me see you try Mr. Weasley!"

"Wha — ? Oh — oh, right," said Ron, very flustered. "Er — _Silencio!"_

He jabbed at the bullfrog so hard that he poked it in the eye; the frog gave a deafening croak and leapt off the desk.

It came as no surprise that Harry and Ron were given additional practice of the Silencing Charm for homework.

Due to the downpour outside they were allowed to remain inside during the break between classes. They found seats in a noisy and overcrowded classroom on the first floor in which Peeves was floating dreamily up near the chandelier, occasionally blowing an ink pellet at the top of somebody's head. They had barely sat down when Angelina came struggling toward them through the groups of gossiping students.

"I've got permission!" she said. "To reform the Quidditch team!"

"_Excellent!"_ said Ron and Harry together.

"Yeah," said Angelina, beaming. "I went to McGonagall and I…."

Hermione stopped listening to the conversation and turned to look out the windows, which were opaque with the hammering rain. She began to think about the dreams she had had the previous night, what Sirius had said, and a seemingly long lost question reemerged in her mind.

__

What will you do when wands fail you?

Between everything that had been going on so far, she had forgotten the question that Kit had yelled to her on her first day back at Hogwarts. Dumbledore had said the next day that he thought that Kit was somehow revealing his plans. Hermione frowned.

"… What's up with you, Hermione?"

"Just thinking…" she responded, still frowning.

"About Siri… Snuffles?" said Harry.

"No… not exactly…" she said slowly. "More… wondering… I suppose we're doing the right thing… I think… aren't we?"

Hermione wasn't even sure what she was talking about, her thoughts darted back and forth between the question and if they were doing the right thing with the Defense Against the Dark Arts group.

"Well, that clears that up," said Ron. "It would have been really annoying if you hadn't explained yourself properly."

Hermione finally snapped out of her half daze and looked at Ron.

"I was just wondering," she said, her voice much stronger now, "whether we're doing the right thing, starting this Defense Against the Dark Arts group."

"What!" said Ron and Harry.

"Yes," said Hermione, she turned and stared back out the window. "Yes, that's what made me think maybe it wasn't a good idea after all…."

Peeves floated over them on his stomach, peashooter at the read; automatically all three of them lifted their bags to cover their heads until he had passed.

"Let's get this straight," said Harry, angrily, as they put their bags back on the floor, "Sirius agrees with us, so you don't think we should do it anymore."

Hermione sighed mentally and tensed, she looked down at her hands feeling slightly off balanced and somewhat zoned out, "Do you honestly trust his judgement?"

"Yes, I do!" said Harry at once. "He's always given us great advice!"

An ink pellet whizzed past them, striking Katie Bell squarely in the ear. Hermione, put on alert by the ink pellet whizzing past them, watched as Katie leapt to her feet and started throwing things at Peeves; not wanting to set Harry's temper off anymore than it already was Hermione began to speak, choosing her words very carefully.

"You don't think he has become… sort of… reckless… since he's been cooped up in Grimmauld Place? You don't think he's… kind of… living through us?"

"What d'you mean, 'living through us'?" Harry retorted.

"I mean… well, I think he'd love to be forming secret defense societies right under the nose of someone from the Ministry…. I think he's really frustrated at how little he can do where he is… so I think he's keen to kind of… egg us on."

Ron looked utterly perplexed.

"Sirius is right," he said, "you _do_ sound just like my mother."

Hermione bit her lip and did not answer. The bell rang just as Peeves swooped down upon Katie and emptied an entire ink bottle over her head.

The weather had not improved when Hermione said goodbye to Harry and Ron as they made their way down to the Quidditch pitch. Hermione sat staring blankly out the window in her dormitory, absent-mindedly scratching Crookshanks behind the ears. Hermione was unsure of why she felt the way she did, she had been out of it all day when she wasn't in a lesson.

'_Hermione._'

Hermione took half notice of the voice.

'_Hermione, are you there?_'

Hermione turned to look down at her bag the same shell-shocked expression on her face; she took a considerably longer time getting the mirror out of her bag than usual.

'Hermione… are you alright?' asked Kit, looking slightly off color.

"What? Oh, yes, I'm fine. Just tired," she wondered if she should tell Kit about the dreams.

'Are you sure?' asked Kit looking concerned.

"Yea — I don't know, listen I need to tell you something," said Hermione.

'Okay, but hold onto that for one second. I just wanted to let you know that with the weather the way it is our birds are grounded until the rain lets up some, so if anything goes down you're going to have to rely on Dobby's unit until we can get there in Humvees. Okay, now that's out of the way, what's up?' said Kit.

"Well, last night…" Hermione began to recount the dreams of the fire, and then the voice. Kit said nothing the entire time she was talking. When she finished he sat quietly for a few moments before speaking.

'Well, erm — I uh… buh… I um….' Kit fumbled around clearly unseated by what she had told him, 'I'm afraid I really can't think of anything to respond to that with. I've never been too good on the whole dream department stuff, so I'm pretty much useless. But, um… how're things goin' with the Defense Against the Dark Arts group?' asked Kit.

'Not so good right now, we don't have any place to practice yet,' replied Hermione.

'Well, I'm sure there's some place that you can fit however many people y'all have. But I'm supposed to see Dumbledore tomorrow, and I'll probably wind up being at the castle all day, so if you can find some place to practice and are able to hold a meeting tomorrow night let me know and I'll roll on up to where ever y'all are at.'

"Okay," said Hermione, her eyes drooping down.

'Okay then, hopefully see you tomorrow, but in the meantime, Captain, you need to get some sleep. So I will leave you to that, good night,' said Kit.

"'Night," said Hermione.

Kit's head disappeared from the mirror. Hermione put the mirror back into her bag. She pulled the covers back on her bed, changed into her nightgown and lay down.

If she had any dreams like the previous night, she either was sleeping to hard to register them, or she didn't have any dreams.

Their robes billowed and swirled around them as they splashed across the flooded vegetable patch to double Herbology, where they could hardly hear what Professor Sprout was saying over the hammering of raindrops hard as hailstones on the greenhouse roof. The afternoon's Care of Magical Creatures lesson was to be relocated from the storm- swept grounds to a free classroom on the ground floor and, to their intense relief, Angelina sought out her team at lunch to tell them that Quidditch practice was cancelled.

"Good," said Harry quietly, when she told him, "because we've found somewhere to have our first Defense meeting. Tonight, eight o'clock, seventh floor opposite that tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being clubbed by those trolls. Can you tell Katie and Alicia?"

She looked slightly taken aback but promised to tell the others; Hermione sat across from Harry and Ron, eating quietly. Hermione was thinking about Dobby telling Harry where they could go to practice. She couldn't help but be worried, as Dobby's plans weren't always the safest in the world.

"What?" Harry asked thickly.

"Well… it's just that Dobby's plans aren't always that safe. Don't you remember when he lost you all the bones in your arm?"

"This room isn't just some mad idea of Dobby's; Dumbledore knows about it too, he mentioned it to me at the Yule Ball."

Hermione felt all of her worries leave.

"Dumbledore told you about it?"

"Just in passing." Said Harry, shrugging.

"Oh well, that's all right then," she said briskly.

The rest of the day was spent locating all the people who had signed their names to the list in the Hog's Head and telling them where to meet that evening. Hermione had just finished telling Ernie and Hannah where and when to meet them, when she suddenly remembered that Kit had asked her to let him know where and when they were going to be meeting. She waited until Ernie and Hannah were out of sight before she pulled out the two way mirror from her bag and spoke into it.

"Kitoriav Lightningstider," the mirror went hazy and Kit's face came into focus.

"What's up? Did y'all find a place to meet?" Kit asked.

"Yes, we're meeting tonight at eight o'clock, seventh floor across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being clubbed by trolls."

"Ten four on that one, I will see y'all there."

"Bye," said Hermione as Kit's face disappeared from the mirror.

At half-past seven Harry, Ron, and Hermione left the Gryffindor common room, Harry clutching a certain piece of aged parchment in his hand. Fifth years were allowed to be out in the corridors until nine o'clock, but all three of them kept looking around nervously as they made their way up to the seventh floor.

"Hold it," said Harry warningly, unfolding the piece of parchment at the top of the last staircase, tapping it with his wand, and muttering. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

A map of Hogwarts appeared upon the blank surface of the parchment. Tiny black moving dots, labeled with names, showed where various people were.

"Filch is on the second floor," said Harry, holding the map close to his eyes and scanning it closely, "and Mrs. Norris is on the fourth."

"And Umbridge?" said Hermione anxiously.

"In her office," said Harry, pointing. "Okay, let's go."

They hurried along the corridor to the place Dobby had described to Harry, a stretch of blank wall opposite an enormous tapestry de-picitng Barnabas the Barmy's foolish attempt to train trolls for the ballet.

"Okay," said Harry quietly, while a moth-eaten troll paused in his relentless clubbing of the would-be ballet teacher to watch. "Dobby said to walk past this bit of wall three times, concentrating hard on what we need."

They did so, turning sharply at the window just beyond the blank stretch of wall, then at the man-size vase on its other side. Ron had screwed up his eyes in concentration, Hermione was whispering under her breath. Harry's fists were clenched as he stared ahead of him.

"Harry," said Hermione sharply, as they wheeled around after their third walk past.

A highly polished door had appeared in the wall. Ron was staring at it, looking slightly wary. Harry reached out, seized the brass handle, pulled open the door, and led the way into a spacious room lit with flickering torches like those that illuminated the dungeons eight floors below.

The walls were lined with wooden bookcases, and instead of chairs there were large silk cushions on the floor. A set of shelves at the far end of the room carried a range of instruments such as Sneakoscopes, Secrecy Sensors, and a large, cracked Foe-Glass.

"These will be good when we're practicing stunning," said Ron enthusiastically, prodding one of the cushions with his foot.

"And just look at these books!" said Hermione excitedly, running a finger along the spines of the large leather-bound tomes. "_A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions… The Dark Arts Outsmarted… Self-Defense Spellwork… _wow…" She turned and looked at Harry, finally convinced that they were doing the right thing. "Harry, this is wonderful, there's everything we need here!"

And without further ado she pulled _Jinxes for the Jinxed_ from its shelf, sank onto the nearest cushion, and began to read. But was interrupted minutes later when Kit walked into the room, carrying all of his gear, rifle included. He nodded to Harry and Ron, and put down his rucksack on the far side of the room near the bookshelves. He then took a seat on a cushion next to Hermione (laying his rifle flat across his lap).

There was a gentle knock on the door, Ginny, Neville, Lavender, Parvati, and Dean had arrived each one of them looked around the room, and cast surprised glances at Kit.

"Whoa," said Dean, staring around, impressed. "What is this place?"

Harry had begun to explain, but before he had finished more people had arrived, and he would start all over again. By the time eight o'clock arrived, every cushion was occupied. Harry locked the door in a loud way that made the room fall silent, and looked at him. Hermione carefully marked her page of _Jinxes for the Jinxed_ and set the book aside.

"Well," said Harry, slightly nervously. "This is the place we've found for practices, and you've — er — obviously found it okay —"

"It's fantastic!" said Cho, and several people murmured their agreement.

"It's bizarre," said Fred, frowning around at it. "We once hid from Filch in here, remember, George? But it was just a broom cupboard then…."

"Hey, Harry, what's this stuff?" asked Dean from the rear of the room, indicating the Sneakoscopes and the Foe-Glass.

"Dark Detectors," said Harry, stepping between the cushions to reach them. "Basically they all show when Dark wizards or enemies are around, but you don't want to rely on them too much, they can be fooled…."

Harry stared at the Foe-Glass for a minute and then turned around.

"And who is that?" asked Zacharias pointing to Kit.

Harry didn't have a chance to respond before Kit snapped back, 'That's need to know. And _you_ don't.'

Eyes darted back and forth between the two before everyone's attention was diverted back to Harry.

"Well, I've been thinking about the sort of stuff we ought to do first and — er —" Hermione raised her hand. "What Hermione?"

"I think we ought to elect a leader," said Hermione.

"Harry's leader," said Cho at once, looking at Hermione as though she were mad, and received a vicious glare in return from Kit.

"Yes, but I think we out to vote on it properly," said Hermione, unperturbed. "It makes it formal and it gives him authority. So — everyone who thinks Harry ought to be our leader?"

Everybody put up their hands, even Zacharias Smith, though he did it very halfheartedly.

"Er — right, thanks," said Harry, blushing. "And — _what_, Hermione?"

"I also think we ought to have a name," she said brightly, her hand still in the air. "It would promote a feeling of team spirit and unity, don't you think?"

"Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?" said Angelina hopefully.

"Or the Ministry of Magic Are Morons Group?" suggested Fred.

"I was thinking," said Hermione, frowning at Fred, "more of a name that didn't tell everyone what we were up to, so we can refer to it safely outside of meetings."

"The Defense Association?" said Cho. "The D.A. for short, so nobody knows what we're talking about?"

"Yeah, the D.A.'s good," said Ginny. "Only let's make it stand for Dumbledore's Army because that's the Ministry's worst fear, isn't it?"

There was a good deal of appreciative murmuring and laughter at this. Hermione found herself smiling uncontrollably at this latest suggestion, and occasionally casting glances at Kit to see his reaction to this.

"All in favor of the D.A.?" said Hermione bossily, kneeling up on her cushion to count. "That's a majority — motion passed!"

She pinned the piece of paper with all of their names on it on the wall and wrote DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY across the top in large letters.

"Right, said Harry, after Hermione had sat back down, "shall we get practicing then? I was thinking, the first thing we should do is _Expelliarmus_, you know, the Disarming Charm. I know it's pretty basic but I've found it really useful —"

"Oh, _please_," said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. "I don't think _Expelliarmus_ is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?"

"I've used it against him," said Harry quietly. "It saved my life last June."

Smith opened his mouth stupidly. The rest of the room was very quiet.

"But if you think it's beneath you, you can leave," Harry said.

Smith did not move nor did anybody else.

"Okay," said Harry, "I reckon we should all divide into pairs and practice."

Hermione, along with everyone else stood up from their cushions and found someone to partner with. Hermione and Ron wound up being partners. Standing a few feet apart from each other Hermione and Ron faced each other with their wands in the ready position.

"Right — on the count of three, then — one, two, three —"

Hermione shouted, "_Expelliarmus!_"

Ron's wand flew out of his hand, landing at the base of the bookshelves. Hermione then retrieved his wand with the Summoning Charm and handed it back to Ron. A few minutes later Neville joined Hermione and Ron's group.

Hermione had just finished successfully disarming Neville when a whistle blew, and after giving Neville back his wand she turned to face Harry.

"That wasn't bad," said Harry, "but there's definite room for improvement. Let's try that again…."

Hermione was picking up her wand from where it lay on the ground beside her, Ron had tripped and his foot hit Hermione's wand hand thus knocking it to the floor. As she was standing back up she looked at Kit who tapped his wrist and nodded. She looked down at her watch and was surprised.

"Hey, Harry," Hermione called, "have you checked the time?"

Harry blew his whistle once more and the last few wands clattered to the floor.

"Well, that was pretty good," said Harry, "but we've overrun, we'd better leave it here. Same time, same place next week?"

"Sooner!" said Dean Thomas eagerly and many more people nodded in agreement.

Angelina, however, said quickly, "The Quidditch season's about to start, we need team practices too!"

"Let's say next Wednesday night, then," said Harry, "and we can decide on additional meetings then… Come on, we'd better get going…."

As Harry allowed people to leave in groups of three and four Kit pulled Hermione off to one side.

'First off, very nice spellwork there Hermione.'

"Thanks."

'Now, to business, with the recent developments in the war it has come to my attention that y'all need a proper training. In addition to this, I am going to speak with Dumbledore on this one, but probably after the first Quidditch match there's going to be a special meeting held. But I'll contact you on a date closer to that, okay?' said Kit.

"Okay," said Hermione, somewhat unsure as to what exactly Kit was talking about.

'Right then, I'm gonna roll on out of here. And I will talk to you later. See ya 'round Hermione,' said Kit as he slung his gear onto his back, and slung his rifle over his shoulder.

As Kit walked towards the door he snapped his fingers, pointed both index fingers at Harry and Ron before giving them a thumbs up, saying, 'Harry, Ron.'

"That was really, really good, Harry," said Hermione, when everyone else had gone except for Harry and Ron.

"Yeah, it was!" said Ron enthusiastically, as they slipped out of the door and watched it melt back into stone behind them. "Did you see me disarm Hermione, Harry?"

"Only once," said Hermione, stung. "I got you loads more than you got me —"

"I did not only get you once, I got you at least three times —"

"Well, if you're counting the last time where you tripped over your own feet and knocked the wand out of my hand —"

They argued all the way back to the common room.


	17. Lion Versus Serpent

Chapter Seventeen

LION VERSES SERPENT

Kit sat quietly in his chair reflecting on the events of the past few weeks. There had been no more Death Eater attacks on his troops since they had put the charred remains of the two Death Eaters back in the woods, but no information about Voldemort's whereabouts other than the usual rumors, and he needed a slightly more solid information base before they could begin operations on that. Unfortunately he could not rationalize a reason to have Umbridge shot, so she still remained alive, along with Draco and pretty much all of the Slytherins. But on a slightly lighter note, from what Hermione had told him was that the D.A. meetings were going very well. Neville had managed to disarm Hermione, Colin Creevey had mastered the Impediment Jinx after three meetings, and Parvati Patil had reduced the table carrying all of the Sneakoscopes, with an excellent Reductor Curse, to dust.

Meetings were kept to a random night, mostly to accommodate three different Quidditch teams' practice. Though it was probably a good thing, since it would be harder if someone were trying to establish a pattern to see where they were going, and exactly where and what time.

And Kit remembered, with no small measure of pride, when Hermione told him that she had made fake Galleons to give out, that would show them the date and time of the meeting. When he had asked her how, she replied that she had placed a Protean Charm on Harry's Galleon and when he changed his that all the others would change to reflect his. If it had been anyone else telling them that they had produced a Protean Charm, he would have laughed, but knowing Hermione he had no doubts, regardless of the fact that a Protean Charm is N.E.W.T. standard.

Kit had been slightly more busy than usual as he had spent the last couple of months getting everything ready for the next D.A. meeting after the first Quidditch Match as he had something very important planned, and required Dumbledore's assistance to have it done. Kit sat there going over the plans in his mind when he was interrupted.

'Sir?'

Kit looked up from the papers on his desk.

'Yes?'

'Quidditch match starts in an hour, and we're getting the birds prepped right now, and we'll be ready to move out in half an hour.'

'Very good, dismissed.'

The soldier saluted, and Kit returned the salute. He went over all the plans for the mission in his head. Six Black Hawks would be orbiting the Quidditch Pitch for the entire game, with four Littlebirds, and two additional Black Hawks standing by. Hermione had been given a small earpiece and a microphone that she could cup in her hands, that way she could talk to them without arousing any suspicions, as it was slightly chilly outside.

Forty-five minutes later Kit was announcing to the entire task force, 'Remember anyone, post-match of course, who's actions indicate the possibility of aggression to either Harry, Fred, George, or Ron, will be taken out. Anyone who attempts any possible, even the slightest act of open hostilities towards Captain Granger, at anytime during, before or after the match will be taken down on the spot, but on that note make sure you have a clean shot. If you don't think you can take the shot without risk to hitting Captain Granger tell me and I will have it dealt with. If you take the shot and it hits Captain Granger in the slightest possible way, I will kill you myself. And also Captain Granger will be on the radio, and she has the full authority granted to her by her rank as Captain and any order she gives will be obeyed without question. Now with that out of the way, enjoy the match and let's do our job right.'

Hermione sat in the stands; she knew that right now there were at least six Black Hawks orbiting the Quidditch Pitch, waiting for something to happen. In her hands she cupped a small microphone in which she could communicate with and if necessary give orders. In her right ear she had a small speaker that allowed her to hear any communications between the Black Hawks.

Fifteen minutes later the two teams walked out onto the Quidditch Pitch. The two captains shook hands, and then Madam Hooch blew her whistle and the balls were released and fourteen players shot upward.

"And it's Johnson, Johnson with the Quaffle, what a player that girl is, I've been saying it for years but she still won't go out with me —"

"JORDAN!" yelled Professor McGonagall.

"Just a fun fact, Professor, adds a bit of interest — and she's ducked Warrington, she's passed Montague, she's — ouch — been hit from behind by a Bludger from Crabbe…. Montague catches the Quaffle, Montague heading back up the pitch and — nice Bludger there from George Weasley, that's a Bludger to the head for Montague, he drops the Quaffle, caught by Katie Bell, Katie Bell of Gryffindor reverse passes to Alicia Spinnet and Spinnet's away —"

Lee Jordan's commentary rang through the stadium and Hermione listened as hard as she could through the noise of the crowds and the constant chatter from the speaker in her ear, and the singing of the Slytherins.

"— dodges Warrington, avoids a Bludger — close call, Alicia — and the crowd are loving this, just listen to them, what's that they're singing?"

And as Lee paused to listen the song rose loud and clear from the sea of green and silver in the Slytherin section of the stands:

__

Weasley cannot save a thing,

He cannot block a single ring,

That's why Slytherins all sing:

Weasley is our King.

Weasley was born in a bin,

He always lets the Quaffle in,

Weasley will make sure we win,

Weasley is our King.

"— and Alicia passes back to Angelina!" Lee shouted, attempting to drown out the sound of the singing. "Come on now, Angelina — looks like she's got just the Keeper to beat! — SHE SHOOTS — SHE — aaaah…"

Bletchley, the Slytherin Keeper, had saved the goal; he threw the Quaffle to Warrington who sped off with it, zigzagging in between Alicia and Katie; the singing from the Slytherins grew louder and louder as he drew nearer and nearer Ron —

__

Weasley is our King,

Weasley is our King,

He always lets the Quaffle in,

Weasley is our King.

"— and it's Warrington with the Quaffle, Warrington heading for goal, he's out of Bludger range with just the Keeper ahead —"

A great swell of song rose from the Slytherin stands:

__

Weasley cannot save a thing

He cannot block a single ring…

"— so it's the first test for new Gryffindor Keeper, Weasley, brother of Beaters, Fred and George, and a promising new talent on the team — come on, Ron!"

But the scream of delight came from the Slytherin end: Ron had dived wildly, his arms wide, and the Quaffle had soared between them, straight through Ron's central hoop.

"Slytherin score!" came Lee's voice amid the cheering and booing from the crowds below. "So that's ten-nil to Slytherin — bad luck, Ron…"

The Slytherins sang even louder:

__

WEASLEY WAS BORN IN A BIN,

HE ALWAYS LET'S THE QUAFFLE IN…

"— and Gryffindor back in possession and it's Katie Bell tanking up the pitch —" cried Lee valiantly, though the singing was now so deafening that he could hardly make himself heard above it.

__

WEASLEY WILL MAKE SURE WE WIN,

WEASLEY IS OUR KING…

'Hermione, how are things looking? Is Ron holding up?' Came a voice in her ear.

Pulling her hands up as though to warm them she said, "Ron, let one in — oh, no… Slytherin has the Quaffle now and… Ron's let two in now. Still no sign of the Snitch."

Ron let in two more goals and Hermione was starting to worry.

"— and Katie Bell of Gryffindor dodges Pucey, ducks Montague, nice swerve, Katie, and she throws to Johnson, Angelina Johnson takes the Quaffle, she's past Warrington, she's heading for goal, come on now Angelina — GRYFFINDOR SCORE! It's forty-ten, forty-ten to Slytherin and Pucey has the Quaffle…."

Hermione cheered along with the rest of the crowd and Luna's lion hat roared amongst them.

"— Pucey throws to Warrington, Warrington to Montague, Montague back to Pucey — Johnson intervenes, Johnson takes the Quaffle, Johnson to Bell, this looks good — I mean bad — Bell's hit by a Bludger from Goyle of Slytherin and it's Pucey in possession again…"

Hermione ignored the swelling of the song as she watched Harry dive down towards the ground. Harry and Malfoy were neck and neck. Flying only five or six feet above the ground Harry had just lifted up his closed hand that held the Snitch. Hermione and everyone else stood up and cheered. But seconds after Harry had lifted up his hand he was hit in the back of the head by a Bludger and he was sent careening off of his broom to the ground. The reaction was immediate.

'Six-one, six-one Hotel Papa down.'

'How?'

'Bludger to the head, hit by Crabbe after the game.'

'Should I take the shot?'

'Affirmative.'

Hermione broke in, "No, Madam Hooch will take care of Crabbe, do not fire."

'Roger that.'

Hermione looked down on the pitch to see Harry and George, or Fred she couldn't tell from this distance, racing towards Malfoy. Harry lunged and tackled Malfoy to the ground before proceeding to pummel Malfoy.

'Who's got a shot on Malfoy?'

'Six-four's does.'

'Roger that six-four the second you have a clear line of sight on Malfoy take him down.'

'Affirmative.'

Harry rolled off of Malfoy after being hit by a spell.

'Clear shot!'

'Take the shot!'

"Do not take that shot!" cried Hermione, her yells unheard by the people around her as they were all yelling onto the pitch.

'Take the subject out!'

"No! Do not open fire!"

'I am ordering you to take that shot!'

"I am countermanding that order, do _not_ take that shot!"

'This is Kit, stand down. Very good Hermione, you passed. See you at the next D.A. meeting. Okay boys, let's head back to base.'

Hermione was thoroughly confused by what just happened.

"Banned," said Angelina in a hollow voice, late that evening in the common room. "_Banned_. No Seeker and no Beaters… What on earth are we going to do?"

It did not feel as though they had won the match at all. Everywhere there were disconsolate and angry faces; the team themselves were slumped around the fire, all apart from Ron, who had not been seen since the end of the match.

"It's just so unfair," said Alicia numbly. "I mean, what about Crabbe and that Bludger he hit after the whistle had been blown? Has she banned _him_?"

"No," said Ginny miserably; she sat beside Harry. "He just got lines, I heard Montague laughing about it at dinner.

"And banning Fred when he didn't even do anything!" said Alicia furiously, pummeling her knee with her fist.

"It's not my fault I didn't," said Fred, with a very ugly look on his face. "I would've pounded the little scumbag to a pulp if you three hadn't been holding me back."

A silence broke out in the common room that lasted for a few minutes before Angelina broke it when she said, "I'm going to bed. Maybe this will all turn out to have been a bad dream…. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and find we haven't played yet…."

She was soon followed by Alicia and Katie. Fred and George sloped off to bed some time later, glowering at everyone they passed, and Ginny went not long after that. Only Harry and Hermione were left beside the fire.

"Have you seen Ron?" Hermione asked in a low voice.

Harry shook his head.

"I think he's avoiding us," said Hermione. "Where do you think he — ?"

But at that precise moment, there was a creaking sound behind them as the Fat Lady swung forward and Ron came clambering through the portrait hole. He was very pale indeed and there was snow in his hair. When he saw Harry and Hermione he stopped dead in his tracks.

"Where have you been?" said Hermione anxiously, springing up.

"Walking," Ron mumbled. He was still wearing his Quidditch things.

"You look frozen," said Hermione. "Come and sit down!"

Ron walked to the fireside and sank into the chair farthest from Harry's, not looking at him. The stolen Snitch zoomed over their heads.

"I'm sorry," Ron mumbled, looking at his feet.

"What for?" said Harry.

"For thinking I can play Quidditch," said Ron. I'm going to resign first thing tomorrow."

"If you resign," said Harry testily, "there'll only be three players left on the team." And when Ron looked puzzled, he said, "I've been given a lifetime ban. So've Fred and George."

"What?" Ron yelped.

Hermione told him the full story. When she had finished, Ron looked more anguished than ever.

"This is all my fault —"

"You didn't _make_ me punch Malfoy," said Harry angrily.

"— if I wasn't so lousy at Quidditch —"

"— it's got nothing to do with that —"

"— it was that song that wound me up —"

"— it would've wound anyone up —"

Hermione stood up and walked over to the window, away from the argument, watching the snow swirling against the pane.

"Look, drop it, will you!" Harry burst out. "It's bad enough without you blaming yourself for everything!"

Ron said nothing but sat gazing miserably at the damp hem of his robes. After a while he said in a dull voice, "This is the worst I've ever felt in my life."

"Join the club," said Harry bitterly.

"Well," said Hermione, her voice trembling slightly. "I can think of one thing that might cheer you both up."

"Oh yeah?" said Harry skeptically.

"Yeah," said Hermione, turning away from the pitch-black snow-flecked window, a broad smiling spreading across her face. "Hagrid's back."


	18. The Only Puzzle Worth Solving

Chapter eighteen

The Only Puzzle Worth Worth Solving

While Hagrid's tale of his trip over the summer was an interesting one to say the least.  It, however, did not explain the massive amount of injuries he had sustained.  But Hermione had to put all of that aside for the time being as tonight was their first D.A. meeting since the Quidditch match.

 It had been almost eight weeks since they all had entered into the room of requirement and they still had another twelve weeks of training before they were done.  But she didn't have long to think before her thoughts were interrupted by the shouting of the Drill Sergeant.

'Spirit of the Bayonet?'

Hermione yelled in response along with the rest of her platoon, 'KILL!'

Again the Drill Sergeant yelled, 'Spirit of the Bayonet?'

'KILL!' said Hermione. 'RED, REB BLOOD MAKES THE GRASS GROW GREEN, DRILL SERGEANT!'

Hermione always enjoyed reciting the spirit of the bayonet.  Except when she had heard it the first time, she thought it was barbaric.  But as they practiced more and more with pugil sticks and doing bayonet drills she found herself taking a small bit of enjoyment from reciting the words.  And today they were going to have another pugil match with their buddy.  Hermione's buddy was Angelina Johnson.

Angelina was taller, and stronger than Hermione.  Was.  During the second week Hermione lost to Angelina in Unarmed Combat, but not by default as many had thought.  And through the many weeks of training Hermione found in herself the aggressiveness that resided inside her undetected until the first day of doing bayonet-fighting techniques.  And Hermione lost by only one point in their first pugil match, and in their second match Hermione won.  Today was their third pugil match and Hermione was looking forward to winning again.

Standing around the sandpit Hermione listened to the Drill Sergeant as he spoke, 'You're going to get back to back with your buddy.  You're going to be dressed up and you're going to get back to back and you're going to walk five paces and then turn around.  Then you're going to walk slowly up to each other and you're going to commence to kickin' each other's tail.  Hooah!'

'Hooah!'

'If you're not fighting, if you don't want to fight your buddy, we'll pair you up with someone twice your size that wants to murder you.  So you'd better come out here be aggressive and fight your buddy.  You're only going to learn from each other.

'You start at the whistle.  You stop at the whistle, just like unarmed combat.  Jordan, Corner you're up first.'

Hermione and Angelina stepped back from the perimeter of the sandpit and sat down across from each other.  For the first couple of seconds they watched as Lee Jordan and Michael Corner fought back and forth.  Hermione watched just enough of the fight to get a small adrenaline rush going.  She turned and faced Angelina.  The two sat in silence staring at each other.  Hermione could feel the burning sensation coursing through her veins as she stared into Angelina's eyes.

'Granger, Johnson you're up!'

With that Hermione and Angelina stood up gave each other a small handshake and then walked into the sandpit.  Hermione checked to make sure that all the padding was secured tightly on her shoulders and chest.  Taking the white American Football helmet she pulled it over her head and put in a plastic mouthpiece.  Two other soldiers pulled the massive padded gloves onto her hands.  When she was done she walked to the center of the sandpit.  When she reached the center she turned around and stood with her back to Angelina's back.  The Drill Sergeant put his hands on each of their helmets and then pulled his hands together so that Hermione and Angelina's helmets would connect.  And with that the first match began.

Hermione walked the five paces and turned back to face Angelina.  Hermione bared her teeth as she slowly walked towards Angelina her adrenaline flowing full force.

_'Violence of Action.  Violence of action is used to gain, or regain the element of surprise.  It is both mental and physical.  Mental, tell yourself that you are the man.  That nothing can touch you._

_'Physical part, be aggressive.  Remember that your ultimate goal in any kind of situation is to ultimately kill your opponent, so all your attacks and movements are working to achieve the goal of killing the opposition with extreme prejudice.'_

Angelina thrust her pugil stick down low, Hermione parried to the right and then thrust forward so that her pugil stick made contact with Angelina's helmet. 

The whistle sounded and the Drill Sergeant said, 'Point.'

This time when Angelina and Hermione turned from the five paces away from each other Angelina was much more aggressive.  Hermione had little time to do anything but react.  She parried left, thrust right, deflected by Angelina.  Bringing her pugil stick back just in time to knock Angelina's pugil stick of its current course that was towards Hermione's head.

Hermione thrust forward and attempted to knock Angelina's pugil stick out of the way, but the two locked together their faces scant inches away from each others.  Pulling back Angelina swung to Hermione's left and withdrew as Hermione went to parry.  Hermione sidestepped and then thrust making contact with Angelina's shoulder.

'Point.'

Once again the two walked towards each other and when they got within two feet Hermione swung towards Angelina's stomach, and when Angelina went to parry she brought the pugil stick up and thrust with all her might towards Angelina's head.  Angelina attempted to lean back to avoid the hit, but in doing so exposed her chin and Hermione's pugil stick hit Angelina squarely in the unguarded portion of Angelina's chin.  Angelina dropped.

The Drill Sergeant blew his whistle and then pointed at Hermione and said, 'Winner!'

Hermione raised her pugil stick above her head in triumph.

'Potter, Longbottom.'

Hermione wiped the sweat from her forehead as she handed Harry her helmet.  She sat down on the edge of the sandpit and watched as Harry and Neville began their fight.

'Alright listen up, you are about to begin Victory Forge.  Victory Forge is the culmination of everything you have learned in the past eight weeks.  It is a three day, two night training event in which you will put to use all of the skills you have learned in the past few weeks.  Are we motivated?'

'Yes, Dill Sergeant!'

'Good, you've got an hour to get geared up.'

'Gas, gas, gas!'

Hermione reached into the hip bag that contained her gas mask and put it on.  Pulling the gas hood back over her head she put her helmet back on and then cleared and sealed her mask.  Several canisters were emitting smoke.  Hermione assumed that they were also emitting tear gas. 

Something landed at her feet.  She looked down.

A flash of light.

Darkness.

Hermione's entire body was filled with a dull ache.  There was an annoying ringing in her ears, and she could just make out the sounds of voices.  Everything was pitch black, but Hermione wasn't sure if that was because her eyes were closed, or if it was just dark outside. 

'Where'd they come from?'

'I don't know, one minute the scanners were showing clear and the next… well, I think you can tell.'

'You don't think they're Rebels do you?'

'I doubt it.'

'Have you notified anyone?'

'Yes.'

'Good, how many are there?'

'We counted close to a hundred, but I heard something about another patrol ran across the same thing we have here.'

'Great… who'd you notify?'

'Captain Pellaeon, he's sending four assault shuttles, three for all of them and the fourth'll have a stormtrooper platoon for guarding them.'

'A platoon of stormtroopers?'

'Yeah, I guess Captain Pellaeon, or the Admiral doesn't want to take any chances.'

'Apparently not.'

Hermione had no idea what the two voices were talking about, but she wasn't sure if she liked the sound of it.  But she didn't have long to think on it as she drifted into unconsciousness.

'Do either of you two have any idea of how to pronounce this one's first name?'

'Here, let me see those,' footsteps moved closer to Hermione then stopped and she heard the soft clinking of metal.  'Wow, um let's see here.  Hermi-on?  No, I don't think that's it.  Let's try this again Her—'

'—mio-NEE,' said Hermione weakly.

'Kriff, she's awake.  Quick, notify the Captain.'

Hermione opened her eyes, and was forced to shut them again as the lights that hung over her head were blindingly bright.

'Dim the lights a little; we don't want to blind her.'

A little late thought Hermione as she opened her eyes again, slower this time.  Once her eyes were adjusted she looked around the room.  She couldn't tell how large the room was since she was laying down on something.  But the walls were a flat gray; the ceiling was the same color except for the lights.  Apparently she was in some kind of medical facility, or recovery room because to her left lay Kit and to her right was Ginny.  In addition to the unconscious forms of Kit and Ginny were two men each looked to be in their early twenties.  One wore an olive drab uniform, and the other wore a black uniform.  Standing next to the man in the black uniform was what Hermione assumed to be a man covered from head to toe in white armor with some kind of rifle held across his chest.  When the white armored man turned to look at Hermione she had to repress a shudder.

Somewhere a door opened and she heard several people approaching.  Three figures came into view on her right side, the one in the middle was a middle aged man with graying hair.  He wore an olive-gray uniform.  The other two wore the same white armor.

'Is she the only one who has awoken?' asked the middle-aged man to one of the other men.

'Yes, captain.'

'Name?'

'Private First Class Hermione Granger, seven twenty-fifth "Black Jackals", Bravo Company, first platoon, Dumbledore's Army,' said Hermione.

'Well it is obvious that you are from an unknown military organization, who is your commanding officer?'

'That would be me,' said Kit.

'And… you are?'

'Major General Kitoriav Lightningstrider, commanding officer seven twenty-fifth "Black Jackals", Dumbledore's Army, Second Battalion,' said Kit, 'and you are?'

'Captain Pellaeon, Imperial Navy, commanding officer of the Imperial Star Destroyer _Chimaera._'

'Pleasure, under normal circumstances I would usually shake your hand, but it would seem that my hands are either unresponsive or have been strapped to this bed, so you'll have to excuse me if I don't extend the courtesy,' said Kit.

'Yes, well we both must admit that the circumstances of your arrival are… shall we say, unusual,' said Pellaeon, 'Tell me, this Dumbledore's Army who does it support?  The Empire or the Rebellion?'

'That all depends on who's in command of the Empire,' said Kit.

'What reason have you given me to trust you with the knowledge of our commander's name?' countered Pellaeon.

'Okay then, how about this, how long ago was the Battle of Endor?' asked Kit.

Pellaeon's eyes narrowed and then said, 'Five years.'

'The Empire,' said Kit.

Hermione had no idea what Kit or Captain Pellaeon were talking about. 

'Tell me, General; would it have made any difference in my answer, even if I had said that the Battle of Endor had not yet taken place?' asked Pellaeon.

'No, not really,' said Kit.

'Then why did you ask?'

'No real reason, just wanted to know,' said Kit and before Pellaeon could make a response Kit began again, 'And I do not wish to see ungrateful, because I'm truly glad that we were discovered by y'all instead of the Rebels, but I have to say that these binders are marginally uncomfortable.  And since you now know that we support the Empire I don't think there is any reason to keep us bound any longer.'

Hermione didn't hear Pellaeon's answer but from the loosening of pressure on her wrists and ankles she assumed it was a yes answer.

Kit sat up on the bed and rubbed his wrists and ankles.  Looking up at Pellaeon he said, 'Thank you Captain, is there any space left on board of which I could secure for my troops?  If all four companies were picked up there'd be about four hundred and thirty troops.'

'I do believe that space can be found,' said Pellaeon.

'And I will also need a place in which I can address all of my troops at one time to explain the situation.  And I must also inform you that my troops are not yet fully trained, when this happened we were beginning the last event of their basic training.  So I would also like to put in a requisition for Stormtrooper training for all of my men,' Kit paused and looked at Hermione, 'and women.  And I request to be able to speak with Grand Admiral Thrawn at his convenience.'

Pellaeon's eye's narrowed at the mention of Thrawn, 'How did you—'

'Captain, trust me I know a lot more than what you think I do.  And that is why I must speak with the Grand Admiral as soon as possible,' said Kit, with a hint of urgency in his voice.

'Very well, if you will excuse me I will speak to the Grand Admiral about your requests and shall be back soon,' said Pellaeon, bowing slightly as he turned and walked out of the room.

Once the doors closed behind Pellaeon Hermione quickly asked Kit, 'Where are we?'

Kit smiled stood up and walked over to Hermione's bed and sat down beside her.  'Well, I can't tell you _exactly_ where we are.  Though under normal circumstances I would say something like "well, we're about five feet away from that bed right there", but since these are not normal circumstances by any means I won't.  But I can tell you that we are no longer in the room of requirement and we are instead on board an Imperial Star Destroyer.  Ever seen Star Wars?  No?  Well, we'll have to fix that when we get back even if I have to show up at your house during the holiday.'

'What makes you think we'll be getting out of here in time for the holidays?'

'Don't you remember what I told everyone about what I had Dumbledore do to the room of requirement?  No matter what happens while we're inside the room, that magic will continue to work until the last person leaves the room of requirement.  So even if we're here for two years when we get back and the last person walks into the hallway everyone will return to what they looked like, age wise, before they stepped into the room.  However you're muscles, and your memory will be the same,' said Kit.

'Who are the men in the white armor?' asked Hermione.

'Stormtroopers.'

'They're quite intimidating to say the least,' said Hermione repressing a shudder.

Kit let out a small laugh, and put his left arm around Hermione in a sort of one armed hug and before speaking. 'Private Granger, I bet you miss the perks of being a Captain.'

'I never knew what the perks of being a Captain were so it didn't do me much good now did it?'

'Point,' conceded Kit, 'and if it makes you feel better Stormtroopers have always been a source of intimidation.  Which is one of the many reasons of which I have asked the good Captain Pellaeon to have us trained as Stormtroopers.  That and with the Emperor no longer in control candidates for Stormtrooper clone hosts are no longer done for political reasons the Stormtroopers are no longer the laughing stock of the Empire.  So the Stormtroopers can always use the extra help to regain their long lost status of being the elite shock troops, and excellent marksmen.  Speaking of marksmanship how did you do on qualifications with your M16?'

'Thirty-six out of forty,' said Hermione with a small measure of pride.

'Very nice,' said Kit.

'Kit, how did we end up here do you know?'

'I wish I did, but I have a few ideas.  One could be that somehow Dumbledore's magic went awry and it sent us off here, or Dumbledore intentionally sent us here.  However, I thoroughly doubt that.  The other reason could be is that we've been sent here for some purpose, and when we complete that mission is when we will be taken back home.'

Before Hermione could respond the doors opened again revealing Captain Pellaeon, and another officer.  They walked in, bowed slightly and then said, 'The Admiral wishes to speak with you.  Lieutenant Tschel will show you the way.'

Kit stood up from where he was leaning on the bed and said to Hermione, 'I will be back shortly.'

Hermione watched the doors close behind Lieutenant Tschel and Kit.  Pellaeon shook his head slightly and muttered, 'So young.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Hermione.

'In the height of the Empire men Lieutenant Tschel's age would not be bridge officers.  And I have noticed that many of the soldiers in which are under your General Lightningstrider are quite young, yourself included.  Why is that?' said Captain Pellaeon.

'You might want to sit down, it's a long story…' said Hermione before launching into a thoroughly detailed explanation of the wizarding world, Voldemort, Harry, Hogwarts, Dumbledore's Army and all that she knew of Kit and his story.

Once Hermione had finished telling all that there was to tell Pellaeon recounted some of his more memorable memories of the Empire, battles, and eventually the conversation turned to Grand Admiral Thrawn.

'—and now we're in the middle of solving, as the Grand Admiral said to me once "The only puzzle worth solving" and that is the complete, total, and utter destruction of the Rebellion.'

The doors opened and Kit walked in followed by Lieutenant Tschel, and two men holding on to opposite ends of a rather large gray bag.  Pellaeon's eyes narrowed when he saw the bag, 'Who died?'

Kit answered, 'Rukh, the Grand Admiral saw fit to relieve him of his duties.'

'Why?'

'The Grand Admiral will explain it all; I'm just here to collect my troopers and move them first to the hangar bay and address them.  And after that take them to their new barracks on board.  Oh, and the Grand Admiral wishes to speak with you at once Captain,' said Kit.

'Very well, I trust you will be able to find everything on your own,' said Pellaeon.

'The Admiral has provided us with escorts for the time being,' said Kit.

Pellaeon walked out of the room and Kit turned to Hermione, 'Well Hermione… we've just taken our first step into a larger world.  Help me wake up everyone else and we'll get down to the main hangar bay and I'll address everyone there.'

Thirty minutes later the main hangar bay was filled, not only were there the four companies of Dumbledore's Army but also filling in were Imperial troops.  At the end of the hangar was a makeshift platform where Kit, Pellaeon and a man with black hair, pale blue skin, and glowing red eyes wearing a white uniform.  Hermione assumed that this man was Grand Admiral Thrawn. 

'Attennn-shun!'

Hermione snapped the heels her feet together, stood straight and curled her hands and placed her arms straight against the seam of her pants and stared straight ahead.

'Men and women of both the Empire and Dumbledore's Army.  For those of you who do not know me I am Major General Kitoriav Lightningstrider commander of the Seven Twenty-fifth "Black Jackals" Regiment, Second Battalion in Dumbledore's Army.  At fourteen twenty-two the Seven Twenty-fifth set out to being Victory Forge which is the culminating event of Basic Combat Training.  Two hours and four miles later a gas attack was simulated using smoke grenades.  And the next thing that any of us know is we're lying bound to medical beds inside the Imperial Star Destroy _Chimaera._

'How or why we are here I can not answer, but I do believe that us being sent here was not an accident and we are here to serve some purpose.

'Now to my soldiers.  Most of you have no clue as to the nature of your surroundings.  You do not have to understand all that goes on around you just yet, all of that will be explained by someone when it is needed.  But we have fallen into the hands of one of the most professional, and possibly the best military organization on this side of the galaxy which is not our own.  While your training was incomplete back at Hogwarts I have had special arrangements made for all of us to undergo the best training program that the Empire has to offer.  And even though everything around you is different from what you have known back at Hogwarts your training still applies.  Remember the Seven Army Core Values.  The men and women of the Imperial Navy, and Army are now also your comrades in arms.  Respect them as you have respected each other. 

'For now we are all united for a common purpose, that purpose is to completely and utterly destroy the Rebellion.  We must improvise and overcome the differences that currently separate our military forces in order to achieve victory, and I have no doubt in my mind that you will all do your best in the coming days. 

'Remember the motto:  "No Matter, What, When, or Where it's our house!"  Jackals!  Are we motivated?'

An immediate chorus rose up through the ranks all saying the same thing, 'MOTIVATED, MOTIVATED HELL YEAH I'M MOTIVATED!  YOU CHECK US OUT, YOU CHECK US OUT!  YOU CHECK US OUT, YOU CHECK US OUT!  OUR HOUSE!'

Kit walked down from the platform and stood at the divide between Bravo and Charlie Company.

'With the events of this day I believe that it is important for many of you to understand several things.  First many of you knew of Rukh.  I was informed today that the Noghri, with the aid of Leia Organa Solo, have left the service of the Empire to serve the Rebellion.  Rukh was involved in a plot to assassinate me in the midst of a crucial battle, in hopes that not only I, but the entire Imperial fleet would be destroyed.  With the help of General Lightningstrider that plot was foiled by the death of Rukh.

'The events of the past can not be undone, but with the aid of General Lightninstrider's Army we will achieve higher standards of troop training on basic fundamentals and shall triumph once and for all over the Rebellion. 

'That is all,' said Grand Admiral Thrawn walking off of the platform.

Kit did an about face and said, 'Jackals, follow your assigned escort to your billets.  Inside your rooms you will find your new dress uniforms of which are to be worn at all times unless you are in your combat gear.  That will be issued to you at a later time.  Dismissed!'

'Johnson, Granger this is you two's room…' said the officer pointing to the door on his left as he continued to walk backwards calling names out and assigning them a room.

Hermione walked into the room followed closely by Angelina.  The room was small most of the space was taken up by two beds, and two desks.  The walls and ceiling were a light gray; the floor was a glossy black.  Towards the back of the room there was a small room.  Looking inside Hermione discovered it was a bathroom.  Walking out of the bathroom and saw the stack of black uniforms on her bed.

'Kinda brings back memories doesn't it?' said Angelina.

'Yep, guess we should change into the new uniforms,' replied Hermione holding the black uniform tunic in the air in front of her.

'I guess so, but I'm going to take a shower first,' said Angelina walking into the bathroom.

'Yeah, that's probably a good idea.  I'll take one after you,' said Hermione.

'Hermione, there's two showers in here you know,' yelled Angelina from the bathroom.

'Oh, that's good.  Don't steal all the hot water,' said Hermione walking into the bathroom.

Two hours later Hermione and Angelina walked out of their room dressed in their new uniforms.  They had been walking for about five minutes when Hermione asked, 'Do you have any idea where the mess hall is?'

'No,' said Angelina.

'Come on, let's go back and see if any of the guys know where it is.  I'm sure Ron and Harry have been there several times,' said Hermione as they turned and headed back to their rooms.

As they were walking they heard loud voices come from up the hallway.  The two picked up their pace to see what the commotion was and when they turned the corner they saw Harry, Ron, Fred, George, and Neville, all dressed in the black uniforms, starting to walk in the opposite direction talking loudly.

'Harry, Ron wait!' called Hermione.

Harry and Ron turned around.

'What's up 'mione?' asked Harry.

'Where's the mess hall?' asked Hermione.

'Follow us that's where we're heading,' said Ron.

Together the seven of them walked to the mess hall.  When they got there they each grabbed what looked to be the best tasting food from the line and then sat down at an empty table.

'You know, this stuff isn't bad.  What about you Ron, how's your food taste?' asked Harry, his mouth partially full.

'It's better than some of those MRE's we've ate in the past.  Chicken ala King, that was possibly the grossest thing I have ever eaten in my life,' said Ron.

'Come on now Ron, it's not that bad.  Though when you mixed the chicken with salsa and the Mexican rice, and then you put the cheese and jalapenos on top of it, that was disgusting,' said Fred.

'Best one was when Neville made that cherry cheese cake out of crackers, the "cherry beverage powder", and cheese spread.  Definitely didn't look good, but it sure did taste good,' said Harry.

Hermione shook her head as she ate her food, listening to the boys banter back and forth about MRE recipes.  The food didn't taste much different than regular food.  She wasn't sure about the other drinks so she settled for milk, expecting white milk instead she got this blue milk that tasted like vanilla ice cream mixed in with regular milk.

Looking around the hall there were only a few tables that had people eating.  At one table she saw several Stormtroopers eating, each had their helmet off.  Each one looked the exact same; she had to keep herself from dropping her fork back onto the tray.  Kit had told her that a lot of the Stormtroopers were clones, but the full idea didn't quite click until she saw them all eating and talking to each other like there was nothing abnormal about it at all.

They maybe clones, but clones are still people Hermione reminded herself.  The boys had moved on from MRE recipes and were talking about something else; Hermione didn't feel like trying to figure it out.

'Attention all Seven Twenty-fifth Bravo Company personnel, you are to report at once back to your barracks ready-room immediately.  Repeat:  All Seven Twenty-fifth Bravo Company personnel you are to report at once back to your barracks ready-room immediately,' announced a loudspeaker.

Hermione, Angelina, and Fred all stood up from the table said a quick good bye, and then walked out of the mess hall heading back towards their barracks.


	19. Life and Death

Chapter Nineteen

Life and Death

'Alright listen up Bravo Company. I hope everyone had a chance to eat before we begin, if not then there's nothing I can do,' said Kit quickly. 'Okay, there are three shuttles in the main hangar bay waiting to take us down to the planet. What's going to happen there is you're going to go for vaccinations, and for the most part it's basically going to be just like your first week back in Basic.

'You'll get fitted for your armor, and then there'll be a quick classroom instruction on all the functions of your armor, and by the time you're done with that your armor set will be completed.

'After that you'll follow your guide to a room where you will remove your service uniform, which is the one you are all wearing now, put on the under suit. Once you have your under suit on notify your guide they'll come in and help you put on your armor properly.

'Now I've looked over the training program and most of it you've already covered so y'alls' training program will be shorter. Though you will have to redo the marksmanship section because from my understanding firing the E-11 Blastech Blaster Rifle is a lot different from firing the M-16, no real big surprise there. However, I am confident in Bravo's ability to adapt and overcome.

'So form up outside and follow the Midshipman down to the hangar bay, good luck Bravo,' said Kit.

Hermione slowly began edging her way out of the cramped ready-room. A sense of excitement and dread filled her as she waited for everyone else to get out of the room so they could begin the trek down to the shuttles waiting in the hangar. What if she was no good at firing the E-11? Sure she could shoot the M-16 beautifully, but the E-11 was a laser weapon, what if she couldn't understand the workings. What if they couldn't make armor small enough for her? Thousands of questions shot through her mind each one growing stranger yet increasingly dreadful.

Yet when they all began walking all sense of dread left her as the many weeks of training back in the room of requirement settled in.

Hermione winced as the last needle was inserted into her arm and extracted. Walking from the front of the line she pulled down the sleeve of her shirt her left shoulder was numb from the constant assault of needles.

Following the signs on the wall she rubbed her shoulder. She stopped outside of classroom eighty-seven and knocked on the door. A slender woman walked to the door. She was slightly taller than Hermione with piercing blue eyes and dirty blonde hair. She wore stormtrooper armor, her helmet rested in the crook of her right arm. Over her right shoulder was a gray pauldron. The woman looked Hermione over from head to toe, and then said, 'Name?'

'Granger, Hermione.'

'Take a seat in the third row, second seat,' said the woman.

Hermione felt the woman's eyes follow her all the way to her seat, and only left her when someone else walked up to the door.

Ten minutes later most of the seats were filled. The woman closed the door. She turned to face them and then spoke her voice soft yet commanding and edged with ice, 'Pay attention, I'm not repeating anything so listen. By the time we are done everyone's stormtrooper armor will be completed. We'll start with the basics.

'Your armor is your life it's as simple as that. Your armor is comprised of eighteen total pieces. These pieces are worn over a climate controlled full body glove. The armor has been specially reinforced to make it more resistant to blaster fire, unlike previous versions that were fielded a few years back this armor actually _works_. It will provide you with about twenty minutes worth of oxygen in hard vacuum. Your belt has attached to the back a single thermal detonator, an incendiary grenade.

'Your helmet has a built in com-link for communication between units, or whatever the situation calls for. Now your helmet has several view modes. You have night-vision, thermal imaging, and infrared. Also your helmet has a speaker unit.

'Once again, your armor is your life. There's an old saying that was taught to all clones during the Clone Wars and it was this, "Take care of your equipment and your equipment will take care of you". That saying, motto, whatever you want to call it still applies.

'Now your rifle is the E-11 Blastech Blaster Rifle. You will all qualify with the E-11 first, and then you'll go onto familiarize yourselves with the other weapons and then you'll be assigned to support weapon teams. But regardless the E-11 has four fire modes: single, burst, full auto, and a single shot stun setting.

'The E-11 power cell has enough power for thirty shots per cell. For recharging spent power cells you'll either have someone in your squad with a charger, or you'll just have to get new ones.

'Now that you all have a basic understanding of your armor, and weapon system let's move on to suiting up in your stormtrooper armor. First you begin by…' the woman took them step by step through the process of donning their armor.

'Need any help Angelina?' asked Hermione as she finished fastening the right shoulder strap.

'No, no thanks I think I've got it,' said Angelina.

'Okay, if you do need some help just give me a shout okay?' said Hermione.

'I will.'

Hermione picked up her helmet from where it sat on the table. She tossed her hair over her shoulders and held her hair up in her left hand. With her right hand she placed her helmet over her head. Making sure that there were no loose strands of hair dangling from the bottom of the helmet she sealed her helmet.

Hermione grabbed the desk to steady herself; it was slightly disorienting looking through the two lenses to view the world instead of using just her eyes. The disorientation only lasted a few seconds. When it passed Hermione grabbed the E-11 that was lying on the desk. It was heavier than her M-16, but not enough to cause any problems. A couple of days of handling it and it'd be fine. After a quick inspection of the rifle with her eyes she placed it in her holster that was located beside her right thigh.

A cold icy voice began speaking in Hermione's right ear, 'Proceed to rifle range four, follow the signs.'

'How'd you do?' asked Angelina as she removed her helmet.

Hermione finished chewing the piece of, what she was told it was called, nerf meat before responding, 'Three short of perfect, how about you?'

'Certainly nothing as prestigious as that, but I got fifty out of sixty,' replied Angelina sitting down beside Hermione.

'There you go, see I told you you'd get better. I mean come on, none of us could hit our targets two days ago,' said Hermione patting Angelina on the back.

'True. How's the food today? If it's anything like yesterday's dinner I'll go hungry,' said Angelina looking warily at her food tray.

'It's not bad, the meat tastes like steak, but watch out for the red things in the noodles they're really sour,' said Hermione.

For a few minutes neither said anything to each other but ate in silence. The woman who was in charge of them walked past their table carrying a tray, talking with Kit.

'Know anything about our CO besides her rank?' asked Angelina reaching for her glass.

'No can't say I have, have you?'

'I've heard a few rumors, want to hear 'em?'

'Sure.'

'Okay, I overheard a couple of the guys from Charlie Company talking about what their CO had told them about our CO. Well apparently no one but higher echelon officers knows her real name. Everyone knows her by, get this, her ex-mercenary name "Beth". Not exactly what I would call a name to intimidate her targets. But whatever aggressiveness her name lacks she made up ten-fold in brutality, marksmanship and everything else she did.

'And remember all that stuff about the other companies doing more than we do, like on foot marches and such?' said Angelina.

'Yeah.'

'I was talking with Katie, she's in Alpha and she told me that their foot march is only twelve miles, and so is everyone else's. That is except for Bravo. She says we're doing twelve, but don't you think it's a bit odd that all the other companies' are always back before we are. That's because we're not doing twelve we're doing upwards of fifteen to twenty mile marches. And our runs last fifteen minutes longer than everyone else's. And that's at a faster pace too.

'We've got the toughest, meanest, and most aggressive CO that probably back in the old days would kill you in the worst possible way just for looking at her wrong. And you know what makes all this so great?' said Angelina trying to suppress a smile.

'What's that?' said Hermione a smile breaking across her face too.

'I think Kit _likes_ her, in more than just a friendly way,' said Angelina chuckling slightly.

Hermione couldn't help but shake her head. Though Hermione often saw Kit talking with "Beth", she had never thought anything of it until Angelina had pointed it out. Hermione felt a like she had lost something. This surprised her, was she jealous? There was no reason for her to have any jealous thoughts towards Kit for talking to "Beth". Hermione cut a piece of her nerf meat and chewed it slowly. A few minutes later she came to the realization that she only felt the way she did because she wasn't used to Kit talking to anyone other than herself, Mara, or Leon. Hermione decided it wasn't worth brooding over. Shrugging she went about finishing her meal.

From across the mess hall Kit became aware that he had been asked a question.

'You do love her don't you?'

'Who?'

'Granger.'

'That's just not cool.'

'Well, do you?'

'That all depends on what you mean by the word love,' said Kit, 'If you mean love in a fatherly way, well it would be unfair and untrue to limit it to Granger as I love all of my soldiers in that way.'

'Kit, I'm not doubting your care or concern for the welfare of all of your soldiers. But it is obvious that you care more for Granger than you do the others. Potter included, especially if he's as important to the wizarding world as I have heard.'

'Potter is the key to the down fall of Voldemort, but Granger has a larger role to play, and is just as, if not more, important to the wizarding world than Potter. She just has no real idea, yet.'

'I see. Kinda makes one miss the directness of war. All this secrecy surrounding these things must get old quickly.'

'Oh, it got old really quick. But one finds ways to make it interesting. But enough talk about the wizarding world. How long until Bravo's ready for combat?'

'Not too much longer, most of the stuff taught here had already been taught. But what's all this I'm hearing about several of our assault transports being refitted with exit doors on the side. Exactly what is this about?'

'The doors on the side will be for mid air exits, basically what'll happen is the shuttles'll fly behind enemy lines, slow down to like 140 knots. The doors will be opened and then we jump out. And upon landing we gather together and begin to conduct offensive operations against the Rebels from behind their lines, meanwhile the front line troops begin their assault while we clear the way, and cut off the Rebels retreat. But I was also thinking about retrofitting the Zero-G trooper jetpacks for use in the atmosphere, allowing us to have the most effective hit and fade troops. The Admiral thought the idea had merit and from what I understand they've begun doing some tests on the ideas. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky and we can use them when we hit Corscant. I mean the jet packs used in the Clone Wars worked only for short bursts, but they worked and it would've made it a lot easier to modify them for longer flight time.

'But, who knows… well, I've got to get back to the _Chimaera_, and work with General Covell on some stuff, so I will be back later. See ya,' said Kit standing up to leave.

'Hermione! Hey, Hermione!' yelled Angelina as she pushed her way through the crowd that was standing around the notice board.

'What's up?' asked Hermione.

'Come on let's get out of here,' said Angelina.

When they reached their room Angelina was grinning broadly and once the door was closed she turned and exclaimed, 'Hermione, we're being deployed!'

'Where? When?' asked Hermione excitedly.

'Tomorrow, we're being transferred to the _Chimaera_ and we'll either be the lead element of an invasion force, or part of the occupation force. If the Admiral manages to take the planet without an invasion we'll be sent down just long enough to help establish the garrison and then we'll be taken back to the _Chimaera_ and so on until we win,' said an ecstatic Angelina.

'Looks like we'd best start packing now then,' said Hermione, suddenly feeling as if there was not enough time for anything else. 'Our first deployment, oh Angelina this is so _exciting_!'

'I know! And we're on The Admiral's flagship too!'

'Hang on a second; won't we be assigned a new CO?'

'Nope, I checked the deployment order twice. Beth is coming with us. Oh, Alpha Company is being deployed to the Mount Tantiss project as a garrison incase C'baoth goes completely crazy and tries to take over the operation there.'

Hermione shuddered at the mention of C'baoth. Jedi Master Joruus C'baoth was the insane Jedi Clone that Grand Admiral Thrawn had enlisted to aid the Empire in the destruction of the Rebellion. Hermione had only seen him a few times in passing, though the last time she had seen him he was in a contest of wills with the Grand Admiral. And he had climaxed his portion of the argument by using the force to take control of everyone around him that was outside of an ysalamiri's bubble. Ysalamiris were odd four legged creatures whose bodies were covered in tan fur; ysalamiris had an interesting feature that went along with them. They had the ability to push back the force in a bubble, thus rendering any force user that entered into the bubble unable to use the force, a handy thing to have around when dealing with jedi.

'Hey, Hermione, you okay?'

'Yeah, just… it's just that we've been working up to this point for the past few weeks and now it's finally come and I'm not going to lie, but I'm scared,' said Hermione quietly, dropping down onto her bed.

With the initial excitement gone doubts, thoughts of horrible deaths, and millions of other possibilities began to run through her mind.

'Me too. But there's no use in dwelling on all of the bad things that can happen. I over heard some of the people in Charlie talking about organizing a party, you gonna go?' said Angelina.

'Maybe, I'm not really sure. I might, though I think I'm going to try and get some sleep I haven't slept in thirty-six hours. Tell me, how do you manage to stay awake longer than I do even though we've done the exact same things?'

'Coffee.'

'Oh.'

'Well, I'm going to try and go figure some more stuff about the party I'll see you there?' said Angelina.

'If I wake up in time I'll go,' said Hermione lying down.

'Okay, see ya,' said Angelina walking out of the room.

_'Kilo, comm, requesting guidance for landing—'_

_'—Up phase shifter—'_

_'—Twenty-one tower one-one-niner-five-six-oh, all cleared to land. Forty-eight on request. Come to the top; set frequency one-one-seven eight—'_

_'—Still not responsive one-zero-niner-three. Directive seven twenty-eight—'_

_'—Departure frequency one-one-niner-one-four—'_

_'—Roger that now returning bound ten miles northwest with a D through six thousand—'_

_'—Country six seventeen J seventy nine thousand—'_

_'—Check the deposit yard twenty-seven—'_

_'—Terminating—'_

The chatter from the cockpit of the shuttle was confusing and didn't help ease the tension that Hermione was feeling at all. She had no idea what half of the things that the pilots were saying meant.

'We're goin' in, hold on!' yelled one of the pilots.

The cockpit door slid shut to sound proof the cockpit and to prevent the vacuum of space from reaching the cockpit should any part of the back half be opened by enemy fire.

_'We are going in with the first wave, so there's more Rebs for us to kill—'_

The shuttle began to shudder violently as the shuttle hit the first layer of atmosphere.

_'—You sweep the entire area, you kill anything that moves. The red flags have flown—'_

The shuttle bucked upwards once last time before settling into a calm flight, which was quickly interrupted by the Rebellions anti-aircraft emplacements. The engines groaned as the shuttles banked wildly to avoid being shot down.

The shuttle suddenly lurched to one side and began to fall in a wild spin. Hermione's heart beat faster and faster as the shuttle cascaded violently to the surface. The pressure against Hermione's body grew rapidly as the spin grew worse and worse.

Silence.

Red.

Black.

Kit watched silently from the bridge of the _Chimaera_ as the shuttles began their descent onto Corellia. Things had gone well for their campaign against the Rebellion, in the months that had followed the arrival on the _Chimaera_, and the destruction of three-fourths of the Rebellion's fleet at Bilbringi.

'Resistance so far has been light, only minor anti-aircraft fire so far,' muttered Kit, 'this is not going to be pretty.'

Kit watched the tactical display burst into life as the shuttles descended towards the ground. Switching the view to holographic mode Kit watched as flak exploded between the shuttles. Kit paid special attention to the lead shuttle as it contained in its cargo hold Beth, Hermione, and some of the best soldiers in the seven twenty-fifth.

The pilots never saw the shots coming that obliterated the left wing and engine, and Kit watched silently as the shuttle plummeted to the ground.

Whether anyone was alive or not, Kit didn't know. But he couldn't dwell on it, so he switched the view back to an overall view of the entire invasion.

'Lead shuttle six-four-seven-two is down Admiral. So far we've only lost three shuttles,' said Captain Pellaeon, risking a glance towards Kit, who stood beside him emotionless.

'Thank you Captain, what was six-four-seven-two's last known trajectory?

'Scanners show that it would have crashed some seven or eight hundred miles behind where our projected beachhead will be established. Without anything to delay a rescue unit it would still take about a week to reach them, with all of the entrenched rebels down there it could be much, much longer.'

'Very well, thank you,' said the Grand Admiral softly, 'proceed with the invasion. General Lightningstrider if you will accompany me to my quarters momentarily.'

'Yes, Admiral,' said Kit turning to follow the Grand Admiral.


	20. A New Question

Chapter Twenty

A New Question

_Darkness enshrouded Hermione. She felt no pain, nor could she feel her body upon the ground, it was if she were floating. She could hear only hear faint whispers, but at most she could only make out a couple of words. The few words that she could understand reverberated around her, and she felt as though the world was beginning to spin. As the spinning sensation grew more and more intense, so did the volume of the whispers._

_'—Four days past —'_

_'—two minds—'_

_'—made one—'_

_'—an age old—'_

_'—wrongs made right—'_

_'—Banished—'_

_'—new age—'_

_'—feats of courage—'_

_The whispers grew quiet once more, but lingered on the very border of Hermione's hearing, when a familiar voice spoke:_

_Confusing this all is, is it not so?_

_Then you might want to know,_

_A comforting thought._

_You have not been caught_

_As a fly helpless in a spider's web._

_You wish to be back in your bed,_

_Safe from harm._

_I do not wish to alarm,_

_But I must confess._

_Things have been set in motion_

_Of which you had naught the slightest notion_

_Now everything is a mess_

_However it must get worse from here_

_Even now the end grows near._

_Let me comfort you still with this:_

_Fear not things to come, for you _

_Shall not hit and miss_

_But strike and follow through_

_To the end._

_The voice faded off to silence, and there was not a sound except for the whispers. Another voice began to speak, 'When it is time you shall know what to do. Worlds collide, and many wrongs righted. Worry not about getting back, for it has been taken care of. They will aid you in your time of need, as you have aided them…'_

_Fading once again into silence the voice was replaced by the vision of small children playing with the sun to their backs. The one on the tree stump turned as though it was looking at Hermione, and with one had appeared to motion for her to come towards it, then a voice called out, 'Hermione… Hermione…'_

Hermione slowly opened her eyes. From the limited field of vision that one gets from lying with their head on a pillow she could make out the blurry outline of someone standing over the bed.

'Hermione.'

Hermione did not recognize the voice that was speaking. Looking at the figure as it slowly came into focus she found that she didn't recognize who it was either. The girl who stood beside her bed didn't look more than a year older than herself. How tall the girl was, was impossible for Hermione to gauge from the bed. Her eyes were a light brown and she had shoulder length wavy black hair. The girl was dressed in the same attire as Hermione and everyone else for that matter with standard issue woodland patterned BDUs. The name tag on her jacket read Vectorin. While Hermione was still looking over Vectorin another figure joined up beside her. This one instantly recognizable, it was Kit.

'Mornin' Hermione,' said Kit.

'Where are we?' asked Hermione.

'Back home at Camp Williams. And this,' he said indicating to Vectorin, 'Is Staff Sergeant Dalane Vectorin just finished up her training back in The States. Now hurry up and get ready to roll we've got formation in an hour and I'll be explaining all that happened, and a few other things,' said Kit.

'Okay,' said Hermione sitting up.

Hermione stood at parade rest as Kit walked onto the platform that over looked the field that they stood on. The sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky, as a breeze swept through the ranks of Dumbledore's Army.

'At ease,' said Kit.

Hermione let her hands drop slightly and focused her attention on Kit.

'Many of you are wondering just what happened, and how did we get back. Well I'm not quite sure how they figured out how to bring us all back home, but they did. And right now the Empire is marching forward to complete victory thanks to our efforts in the time we were with them. And I can assure all of you that we will one day fight along side them again. But for now we mustn't concern ourselves with that. Before we left you all were performing the final event of Basic Combat Training.

'Now there is no need to continue with that training, as you all finished it during your training to become Imperial Stormtroopers. So with a few final words I will dismiss y'all back to the real world, and I wouldn't advise having the planned DA meeting tonight. Give yourselves sometime to readjust to y'alls usual surroundings again.

'It has been a pleasure to help all of y'all to become professional soldiers, and I look forward to seeing all of y'all again. When you get back to your barracks you will find the clothes that you wore when you walked in here and you wand. Change back into those, however I want all of y'all to keep your current clothes and take them with you. And wear them under your normal Hogwarts robes, but don't worry if you wear normal clothes over your BDUs your BDUs will become invisible.

'_Atten—shun!_'

Hermione snapped to attention.

'_Present… arms!'_

Hermione brought her right hand up in a crisp salute.

_'Order… arms!'_

Hermione snapped her right hand back down.

'Good luck on all of your exams, O.W.L.'s, N.E.W.T.'s and anything else. Remember LDRSHIP, The Three General Orders, and everything else that you have learned here. Dismissed!'

Following the advice that Kit had said the DA meeting was cancelled and everyone walked back to their common rooms. The trio talked as they slowly walked down the corridor towards the Gryffindor common room.

"You know, it's kinda weird that now there are probably hundreds of us running around fighting Rebels in another galaxy. And I don't care what anyone says that Thrawn guy's eyes gave me the creeps,' said Ron, shuddering slightly.

"Hermione is something wrong. You seem awfully quiet, is something wrong?' asked Harry, looking concerned.

'No, I'm just a bit tired that's all,' said Hermione feinting a yawn.

Hermione was in fact going over in her head what she had heard before she woke up earlier that morning.


	21. The End of One Journey Is The Start of A...

Chapter Twenty-One

The End of One Journey Is The Start of A New Journey

'Oh.'

Hermione relapsed into unconsciousness, and then into the dream which she had seen so many times before, yet instead of out of focus and obscured it was as clear as a bell.

'Watch it!' Yelled Kit as he tackled Ron to the ground. Picking himself off of Ron he quickly grabbed Ron's collar and drug him over into the closest bit of cover he could find.

Bits of stone and marble flew off of the column behind which Kit and Ron were taking cover, 'You know what?' asked Kit rhetorically to no one in particular. 'I'm fething tired of this "don't kill them" BS.'

Kit snapped his wand in half and then ducked out of cover threw his wand at the nearest Death Eater who paused in confusion as they were each pelted by a half of Kit's wand. Shaking their heads in confusion they each raised their wands. But before their parched lips even opened to take a breath before saying the incantation their heads exploded in a mass of blood and gore. This gave Kit a small feeling of relief and satisfaction. However, Ron was retching profusely.

'You okay Ron?' asked Kit.

Ron shook his head no.

'Good, let's get moving.'

The quiet battle of spells changed dramatically from the time that Kit took his first shots with his M16. Now the entire Department of Mysteries echoed with gunshots.

Looking out onto what she thought would have been a familiar sight Hermione realized that her entire idea of the dream was totally off. What she thought were kids playing turned out to be House-Elves, and standing on the tree stump was a gnarled looking old House-Elf who only stood because of two canes which he supported himself with. And he shouted to the other House-elves, '"House-Elves beware! Coming to the end of our glory, we are. Imprisoned as slaves we will be and it shall be so for many, many years. In fact such great a time shall it be that these words of which I speak shall disappear from the mind of all that live at that time."

"One is coming who shall lead the House-Elves to return, not to the days of that which we live in now, but a new day. What that day shall be like I do not know. The one who comes shall not be one of us, but another. Aided by an unseen element, this one shall be born four days past the middle of the ninth month to those who know nothing of magic. Rebellion shall follow, and many clashes shall be fought yet the one shall lead us to victory and return us to an equal setting with our fellows."

The world began to rush past Hermione she saw glimpses of distant cities in flames, dead bodies human and house-elf. Then she saw herself covered in dirt and mud. She was wearing her BDUs, and was out in a field somewhere, explosions erupted off in the distance sending dirt and flames into the air.

Again the world she was viewing changed from her in the middle of a battle to Diagon Alley. It was not its usual bright and cheerful self but instead it was dark, buildings were barely standing. The air was filled with smoke and dust. Figures could be seen running to and from these shadows of once great buildings. And at the top of the Leaky Cauldron there stood a flag pole and attached to the pole was a weary solemn flag bearing the Ministry of Magic's heraldry. The tranquil scene exploded into activity.

High pitched whistling told of an incoming doom for those dark figures scurrying about the ruins of Diagon Alley. High Explosive shells rained down upon the beleaguered defenders. Then she saw the scene fast forward through the battle to the end. She saw an older version of herself standing atop of The Leaky Cauldron in one hand she held the flag pole that bore the burning Ministry of Magic flag, which she cast down to the ground below. And with both hands she took a red flag that bore the letters H.E.L.F. and planted its flag pole firmly into the roof of The Leaky Cauldron. And a mighty cheer rose up from the ground below. Looking down she could see Kit, Mara, Dunningham, Dalane, Dekker, Leon, Joshua, Ron, and Dobby standing at the front of the crowd cheering. As she looked closer she could see familiar faces peppered throughout the crowd such as Harry, and Dumbledore, who had a small satisfied yet mischievous smile. And in the very middle of the crowd was Hagrid cheering wildly and upon his shoulders were several House-Elves.

A sudden gust of wind blew from the west causing the flag to unfurl and flap wildly in the wind. As if on cue HELF banners were unrolled from the second and third story windows of buildings all up and down Diagon Alley. It was in this moment that Hermione finally noticed what was in her older self's other hand it was not a wand but her M-16.

The cheering slowly died down and all eyes looked up to Hermione expectantly. The older Hermione gazed down at the crowd and then for a moment she could have sworn that the older Hermione looked directly at her. Smiling the older Hermione simply drew a breath as if to make a speech and then pointed directly at Hermione, or so she thought. Turning around she saw what she was pointing at.

Gringotts.

The snowy-white building was miraculously intact and undamaged. Flying high from the roofs were many Ministry of Magic banners. Another cheer rose from the crowd and quickly the world grew dim and distant. All except the older Hermione who was standing not two feet away from Hermione.

'This is as far as it is written, I can go no further. You must carry the banner of war and reconciliation past this point. The House-Elves need you, though you must learn the code for them to see their true selves. Kit will show you the code, and you will learn it.

'The road that lies at your feet is not an easy one it is filled with death, danger, and excitement. You will be loved and loathed and should you fail your name will be as black as Voldemort's. Should you succeed your name will be shouted from the rooftops for centuries, never to be forgotten. And I must now leave you. Good luck!'

Black.

Hermione gasped and opened her eyes. She had no idea where she was the world around her was blindingly bright. Looking around she saw that she was laying in a bed which slowly reminded her that she was in the Hospital Wing of the school. Detecting movement out of the corner of her eye she turned and saw Dumbledore standing there. He quietly took a seat at the foot of the bed and turned to look at her. Speaking quietly he said, "Good afternoon Miss Granger. It is a pleasant surprise to see you have recovered so quickly from the injury you sustained two days ago. I trust all is well?"

Despite some aches and pains throughout her body she nodded yes.

"Good then."

'Professor,' began Hermione but paused as Dumbledore leaned in closely, 'I… I saw a vision.'

"Oh, before you begin I have been instructed by Kit to deliver these few items to you," Dumbledore produced from the floor beside Hermione's bed a pair of black boots and a large book. The book bore the inscription:

House-Elf Combat-Code

Looking up at Dumbledore Hermione saw the same satisfied yet mischievous smile on Dumbledore's face. Rising from the bedside Dumbledore said, "Already the drums of The War of Reconciliation have begun to beat."

As he walked out of the Hospital Wing she heard drums faintly at first and as Dumbledore drew closer to the door they grew faster, more intense and above all louder.

To Be Continued…


End file.
